.0" <-. , O ■ ,«, '^ ^0^ ^* -.^ - < 









^ ^'^'^ : /%■' W-v- ■!^''^, 






^= ^^■^ "'^^.. '. 






/■ ^- . \ 















c. '>^^$S^ 




HOURS OF LIFE 



AND OTHER POEMS. 



BY 



^/^^ SARAH HELEN WHITMAN 



PROVIDENCE: 
GEORGE H. WHITNEY. 

1 853. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in tlie year 1858, by 

George II. Whitney, 

In the Clerk's office of the District Court of the District of Rhode- Island. 



SNOWLESj ANTHONY & CO. ?t«NTERB. 



CONTEXTS. 



HOURS OF LIFE. 

PAGE. 

MORXIXG 3 

Noox 13 

EVEXIXG 30 

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

TuE Golden Ball 43 

MooNRiSE IX Mat .'52 

The Trailing Abbutus 56 

A Still Day in Autumn CO 

The Angel of Death _ 63 

♦' The Raven " 66 

A Night in August 70 

Morning. From " The Sleeping Beauty." 73 

The Last Floavers 75 

Arcturus. "Written in October. 77 

Written in April , 79 

The Morning Glory 82 

The Phantom Voice 85 

Rescrgamus 83 

To the Morning Star 93 

On a Statue of David 96 

Wood-walks in Spring 99 



CONTENTS. 



Lines written in Novenber 103 

Evening on the Moosiiaussuck 107 

The Garden Sepulchre 110 

Our Island of Dreams 115 

In April's Dim and Shoavery Nights 118 

TiiD Enchanted Castle 120 

The Rout of the Children 123 

Sunmer's Call to the Little Orphan 128 

A Hollow of the Hills 133 

A Vision of Paradise 137 

The Past 141 

A Day of the Indian Summer 145 

She Blooms no More 151 

On a Magdalen by Carlo Dolce 154 

To , 155 

Morning after a storm 157 

To 159 

Floralie IGl 

Stanzas with a Bridal Ring 163 

On Fannie's Charm Lamp 165 

Song 166 

The Drama 168 

Roger Williams 174 

The Cross. To M. J. L 180 

SONNETS. 
To Elizabeth Barrett Broavning. 

I 185 

-^ n 186 

m 187 



POEMS. 



CONTENTS. Vll 



The Garden Mixster 188 

To E. 0. S 189 

A November Landscape 190 

Withered Flowers 191 

Remembered Music 192 

To 

1 193 

ir 194 

Ill 195 

IV 195 

Y 196 

YI 197 

TRANSLATIONS FROM THE GERMAN. 

The Lost Church 201 

Leonora. 205 

From Goethe's Faust 218 

To the Clouds 220 

The Dying Heroes 222 

The Cottage 225 

SONNET. 
My Flowers 227 



HOURS OF LIFE. 



HOUES OF LIFE. 



MORNING. 

"Temp' era dal principio del matino 
E'l sol montava in su con quelle stelle 
Ch'eran con lui quando TAmor divino 
Mosse da prima quelle cose belle ; 
Si cha bene sperir mera cagione 
L'ora del tempo e la dolce stagione." 

Dante. 

Ere youth with its auroral blooms 

Dispels the tender twilight glooms 

Of Infancy, while yet it lies 

Close to the gates of Paradise, 

No fears the guileless bosom thrill, 

The little stranger slumbers still, 

O'ershadowed by the silent wings 

Of angels, 'till the moining brings 

Music and perfume, and around him flings 

Her rosy mist-wreaths, drooping warm and low, 

And prints her fragrant kisses on his brow. 



HOURS OF LIFE. 

Startled from out that dreamless rest, 

Through mist-wreaths, drooping warm and low, 
I saw her faint smile in the east, 

I felt her kisses on my brow. 



From the high meadows, dewy-sweet, 
Fair Eos with her silver feet 
Chased the shadows as they crept 
Under woodland boughs away, 
Or down the airy uplands swept 
Into hollows cool and grey, 
'Till her full refulgence, bright 
As a perfect crysolite. 
Filled the solemn dome of Night ! 



With a sweet, indolent surprise, 
Undimmed by haunting memories, 
I saw the gradual glory rise. 



Divinely calm and fancy-free 
Were those morning hours to me, 



HOURS OF LIFE. 

I recked not of the bitter root 
That bears the paradisal fruit, 
I knew not that the serpent brood 
Lurked in that aidenn solitude, 
For childhood kept inviolate 
The tenure of its fair estate, 
Lulled in a murmurous monotone, 
As when bees in violets drone. 



'Till gently as the spring-time showers 
Wake the rose-buds into flowers, 
Nature wrought her spells to lure 
The child-heart from its clear-obscurej. 
Dazzling the bewildered sense 
With dsBdalian opulence, 
Protean visions, sweet and strange, 
And swift and subtle interchange 
Of light with shadow, too intense 
For the sweet calm of innocence : 
Soon like the pure and priceless pearl 
In Egypt's festal goblet tossed. 
It vanished in the dizzy whirl 
Of life's bewildering pleasures lost. 



HOURS OF LIFE. 

Wild hopes came fluttering round my heart 
And swept its folded leaves apart, 
As underneath those cloudless skies 
I wandered with my Destinies, 
Nor sought to read their silent eyes. 

Thoughts for pain too dear — too deep 
For pleasure — caused the heart to weep 
Tears that steeped in fragrance fell 
Like dew-drops from the lily's bell. 



Dream followed dream : and still the day 
Floated on golden wings away. 



Then, while each little woodland bird 
One sweet note forever sung, 
My heart on one bewildering word 
Its wealth of morning music flung : 
All the glory and the gloom — 
All the passion and the power — 
All the mystic bale and bloom 
Of its high imperial dower. 



HOURS OF LIFE. 7 

Like the sole phoenix in his perfumed nest, 

Love reigned within my heart a sovran guest — 

Reigned in my heart of hearts — the throned lord 

Of its young life, unquestioned and adored ; 

Folding its fragrant altar-gifts in flame 

That made the summer heavens look wan and pale, 

Forestalling life's fair heritage and claim 

On earthly hope 'till hope waxed cold and stale, 

Bankrupt and blighted with the fond excess 

Of a too rare and costly happiness, 

A flame that earth's calm joys too proudly spurned. 

And left but ashes where its altars burned. 



Yet, like the fabled Greek, superbly bold, 

Who on Jove's awful countenance would gaze, 

Pining immortal beauty to behold, 

Consumed beneath the lightning of its rays. 

My conscious heart a willing fate had sought, 

Undaunted by the pangs its triumph^3 bought ; 

Content love's mortal penalties to share, 

And, for a dream so sweet, a dreadless doom to dare. 



HOURS OF LIFE. 

I trod o'er meads of asphodel, 
I walked the hall of dreams, 

And gathered sweeter flowers than fell 
By Enna's fabled streams. 

Every wind of morning bore 
Music from some haunted shore, 
Some fairy island o'er the seas, 
Insphered in orient phantasies. 

Every cloud that floated by 
Veiled beneath its silver wing 

Missives from a world more fair 
Than the Poets' dream of spring. 

I sought the holy wells of song 
Love's wild enchantments to prolong, 
And walked as in a waking trance 
The wonder-land of old romance. 



Sometimes to a triumph march 
Throbbed the life-pulse, warm and high. 



HOURS OF LIFE. 

Sometimes tolled in silver time 
To a haunting melody, 
Like a holy matin bell 
Chiming in a far chapelle : 
Now trembling to a cadence sweet 
As the clear and silver beat 
Of fairy footsteps, or the fall 
Of fountains in a marble hall, 
Now as to an echoing horn, 
Far through moonlit forests borne. 
Sad and rhythmically slow, 
Moved to grand adagio. 



Dream followed dream : the horizon lay 

A line of silver far away ; 

The trees soared far into the blue, 

The rose-cups dripped with morning dew, 

And still the level life-path wound 

Away, away, o'er flowery ground. 



HOURS OF LIFE 



NOON. 

"The mysterious silence of full noon." 

Bailey. (Festus.) 

" C'ombieff de fois dans le silence de niinuit, et dans cet autre 
silence de midi, si accablant, si inquiet, si devorant, n'ai-je pas 
senti mon coeur se precipiter vers un but inconnu, vers un bonheur 
sans forme et sans nom, qui est au ciel, qui est dans I'air, qui est 
partout, comme I'amour ! Cest I'aspiration saiute de la partie la 
plus etheree de notre ame vers I'inconnu." 

George Sand. (Lelia) 



Dream followed dream ; and still the day 
Floated on golden wings away ; 
But in the hush of the high noon, 
Touched by a sorrow without name, 
Consumed by a slow, fever-flame, 
I loathed my life's mysterious boon, 
Unconscious of its end or aim : 



13 HOURS OF LIFE. 

Lost in a languor of repose — 

A luxury of gloom — 
As when the curved, voluptuous rose 

Droops with its wealth of bloom. 



Decked as for a festival 
Seemed the wide and lonely hall 
Of Nature, but a mute de&pair 
Filled the universal air ; — 
A sense of loneliness and void, — 
A wealth of beauty unenjoyed, — 
A sadness born mid the excess 
Of life's unvalued loveliness. 



Every pulse of being panting 
With a bliss it fain would share, 
Still there seemed a presence wanting. 
Still some lost ideal haunting 
All the lone and lustrous air- 



Far off I heard the solemn chimes. 
Of Life and Death— 



HOURS OF LIFE. t^ 



The rhythm of ancestral rhymes 
Above — beneath ! 



*' Light in shadow ever fading — 
'' Death on Life's bright realm invading- 
*' Pain with pleasure keeping measure — 
'' Wasting care with golden treasure. — 
So the ancient burden rang, 
So the choral voices sang. 



Though beautiful on all the hills 
The summer noon-light lay, 

Far in the west a single cloud 

Lay folded like a fleecy shroud, 
Ready to veil its ray. 

And over all a purple pall 
Seemed waiting for the day. 



I heard far, phantom voices calling 
Over all the flowery wold, — 

O'er the westering meadows falling 
Into slopes of gleamy gold j — 



14 HOURS OF LIFE. 

Still I heard them calling — calling — 
Through the dim, entangled glooms — 

Far through sunless valleys falling 
Downward to a place of tombs. 

Near me pressed a vassal throng, 
Slaves to custom, serfs to wrong — 
Hollow-hearted, vain and cold. 
Minions of the earthly mould; 
Holding in supreme derision 
Memories of the life elysian, 
Reckless of the birth-right lost, 
Heedless of the heavenly host, 
Traitors to the Holy Ghost ! 

Haunted by a nameless terror, — 
Thrilled by a foreboding breath, 
As the aspen wildly trembles 
When the winds are still as death, 
I sought amid the sadness drear 
Some loved familiar face to cheer 
The solitude, — some lingering tone 
Of love ere love and hope had flown. 



HOURS OP LIFE* 15 

I heatd a low voice breathe my name :— 
Was it the echo of my own, — 
That wierd and melancholy tone, — 
That Voice whose subtle sweetness came 
Keen as the serpent's tongue of flame ? 
So near, its music seemed to me 
The music of my heart to be. 



Still I heard it, nearer, clearer, 
When all other songs had flown, 
Floating round me 'till it bound me 
In a wild world of its own. 



Suddenly a chill wind leapt 

Through its woven harmonies — 

All its silver chords were snapt 

As a wind-harp's by the breeze. 

A shudder through the silence crept 

And death athwart the noon-light swept. 



Then came the pall, the dirge, the knell, 
As, dust to dust, the earth-clods fell, 



16 HOURS OP IIFE. 

Down crumbling on a coffin lid, 
Within whose narrow casket hid — 
Shut from the cheerful light of day — 
Buried, yet quick, my own heart lay. 



Graves closed round my path of life, 

The beautiful had fled, 
Pale shadows wandered by my side, 

And whispered of the dead. 
The far off hollow of the sky 

Seemed like an idle mockery,— 
The vaulted hollow of the sky, 

With its blue depths of mystery 

But rounded Death's vast empeiy. 



O'erwearied with life's restless change 

From extacy to agony, 

Its fleeting pleasures born to die, 

The mirage of its phantasie. 

Its worn and melancholy range 

Of hopes that could no more estrange 

The married heart of memory, 



HOURS OF LIFE. 17 

Doomed, while we drain life's perfumed wine, 

For the dull Lethean wave to pine, 

And, for each thrill of joy, to know 

Despair's slow pulse or sorrow's throe — 

I sought some central truth to span 

These wide extremes of good and ill — 

I longed with one bold glance to scan 

Life's perfect sphere, — to rend at will 

The gloom of Erebus, — dread zone — 

Coiled like a serpent round the throne 

Of Heaven, — the realm where Justice veils 

Her heart and holds her even scales, — 

Where awful Nemesis awaits 

The doomed, by Pluto's iron gates. 



In the long noon-tide of my sorrow, 

I questioned of the eternal morrow ; 

I gazed in sullen awe 

Far through the illimitable gloom 

Down-deepening like the swift mselstroom, 

The doubting soul to draw 



18t hours of life. 

Into eternal solitudes, 

Where unrelenting silence broods 

Around the throne of Law. 



I questioned the dim chronicle 
Of ages gone before — 
1 listened for the triumph songs 
That rang from shore to shore, 
"Where the heroes and the conquerors wrought 
'The mighty deeds of yore — 
Where the foot-prints of the martyrs 
Had bathed the earth in gore, 
And the war-horns of the warriors 
Were heard from shore to shore. 



Their blood on desert plains was shed — 
Their voices on the wind had fled — 
They were the drear and shadowy Dead ! 



"Still, through the storied past, I sought 
-An answer to my sleepless thought j 



HOURS OP LIFE. 19 



In the cloisters old and hoary 
Of the mediaeval time — 
In the rude ancestral story 
Of the ancient Runic rhyme. 



I paused on Grecian plains, to trace 
Some remnant of a mightier race, 
Serene in sorrow f.nd in strife, 
Calm conquerors of Death and Life, 
Types of the god-like forms that shone 
Upon the sculptured Parthenon. 



But still, as when Prometheus bare 

From heaven the fiery dart, 

I saw the "vulture passions" tear 

The proud Caucassian heart — ^ 

The war of destiny with will 

Still conquered, yet conflicting still. 



I heard loud Hallelujas 
From Israel'sj golden lyre, 



20; HOURS OF LIFE, 

And I sought their great Jehovah 

In the cloud and in the fire. 

I lincrered by the stream that flowed 

*' Fast by the oracle of God" — 

I bowed, its sacred wave to sip — 

Its waters fled my thirsting lip. 

The serpent trail was over all 

Its borders, — and its palms that threw 

Aloft their waving coronal, 

Were blistered by a poison dew. 



Serener elements I sought, 
Sablimer altitudes of thought, 
The truth Saint John and Plato saw. 
The mystic light, the inward law; 
The Logos ever found and lost. 
The aureola of the Ghost. 



I hailed its faint auroral beam 

In many a Poet's delphic dream, 

On many a shrine where faith's pure flame 

Through fable's gorgeous oriel came. 



HOURS OF LIFE. 521 

Around the altars of the god, 
In holy passion hushed, I trod. 
Where once the mighty voice of Jove 
Rang through Dodona's haunted grove. 
No more the dove with sable plumes - 
Swept through the forest's gorgeous glooms ; 
The shrines were desolate and cold, 
Their paeans hushed, their story told, 
In long, inglorious silence lost, 
Like fiery tongues of Penticost. 



No more did music's golden surge 

The mortal in immortal merge : 

High canticles of joy and praise 

Died with the dream of other days ; 

I only heard the Maenad's wail. 

That shriek that made the orient pale : 

Evohe ! — ah — evohe ! 

The mystic burden of a woe 

Whose dark enigma none may know j'^ 

The primal curse — the primal throe. 



^2* HOURS 07 LIFE. 

Evohe ! — ah — evohe ! 
Nature shuddered at the cry 
Of that ancient agony ! 



Still the fabled Python bound me- 
Still the serpent coil inwound me- 
Still I heard the Micnad's cry, 
Evohe 1 — ah — evohe I 



Where the Nile pours his sullen wave 

Through tombs and empires of the grare.^ 

I sought, 'mid cenotaphs, to find 

The earlier miracles of mind : 

Alas, beside the funeral urn 

How drearily the death-lights burn ; 

On dim Denderah's sculptured lore 

How sad the noonlight falls, 

How mournfully the west wind sighs 

Through Karnak's mouldering halls ! 

No tongue shall tell their wondrous tale,. 

No hand shall lift the Isis veil ; 



HOURS OF LIFE. 23 



The mighty pyramids that rise 
So drear along the morning skies, 
Guard well the secrets of the dead, 
Nor break the sleep of ages fled. 



Their awful shadow passed, I stood 

On India's burning solitude ; 

Where, in the misty morning of the world, 

Life lay as in a dream of beauty furled. 

I saw the mighty altars of the Sun — 

Before whose fires the star-gods, one by one. 

Paled like thin ghosts — in lurid splendors rife; 

I heard the Persian hail him Lord of Life! 

I saw his altar-flames rise wild and high, 

Veiling the glory of the noon-day sky, 

Hiding the holy heavens with their ensanguined dye. 



I turned, and from the Brahmin's milder law 
I sought truth's mystic element to draw, 
Pure as it sparkled in the cup of heaven — 
The bright amreeta to the immortals given — 



24 HOURS OF LIFE. 

To bathe my soul in fontal springs, that lie 
Veiled from the careless and incurious eye. 



Half wakened from the brooding sleep 
Of Nature ere she felt the leap 
Of sentient life, the Hindoo seemed 
Sad as the faith his fathers dreamed ; 
Like his own rock-hewn temples, wrought 
From some obscure and shadowy thought 
Of ancient days — some formless dread, 
In the grey dawn of ages bred — 
Prone on his native earth reclined. 
To endless reveries resigned. 
His dull soul lapsing on the Lethean stream. 
Lost in the dim world of a lotus dream. 



Still, still the eternal mystery, 
The shadow of the poison-tree 
Of Good and Evil haunted me. 
In Religion's holy name, 
Furies fed her altar-flame, 
Sophists gloried in her shame. 



HOURS OF LIFE. 25 



Still the ancient mythus bound me, 
Still the serpent coil inwound me, 
Still I beard the Maenad's cry, 
Evobe ! — ah — evohe ! 



Wearied with man's discordant creedj 
I sought on Nature's page to read 
Life's history, ere yet she shrined 
Her essence in the incarnate mind ; 
Intent her secret laws to trace 
In primal solitudes of space. 
From her first, faint atomic throes, 
To where her orbed splendor glows 
In the vast, silent spheres that roll 
Forever towards their unknown goal. 



I turned from dull alchemic lore 

With starry Chaldeans to soar, 

And sought, on fancy's wing, to roam 

That glorious galaxy of light 

Where mingling stars like drifting foam, 

Melt on the solemn shores of night ; 



HOURS OF LIFE. 

But still the surging glory chased 
The dark through night's chaotic waste 
And still, within its deepening voids, 
Crumbled the burninor asteroids. 



Long gloating ou that hollow gloom, 
Methought that in some vast majlstroom. 
The stars were hurrying to their doom, — 
Bubbles upon life's boundless sea, 
Swift meteors of eternity. 
Pale sparks of mystic fire, that fall 
From God's unwaninof coronal. 



Is there, I asked, a living woe 

In all those burning orbs that glow 

Through the blue ether? — do they share 

Our dim world's anguish and despair — 

In their vast orbits do they fly 

From some avenging destiny — 

And shall their wild eyes pale beneath 

The dread anathema of Death? 



HOURS OP LIFE. 27 

Our own fair earth — shall she too drift, 

Forever shrouded in a weft 

Of stormy clouds, that surge and swirl 

Around her in her dizzy whirl : — 

Forever shall a shadow fall 

Backward from her golden wall, 

Its dark cone stretching, ghast and grey, 

Into outer glooms away ? — 

From the sad, unsated quest 

Of knowledge, how I longed to rest 

On her green and silent breast I 



I languished for the dews of death 
My fevered heart to steep. 

The heavy, honey-dews of death, 
The calm and dreamless sleep. 



I left my fruitless lore apart. 
And leaned my ear on Nature's heart, 
To hear, far from life's busy throng. 
The chime of her sweet undersong. 



28 HOURS OF LIFE. 

She pressed her balmy lips to mine, 
She bathed me in her sylvan springs ; 
And still, by many a rural shrine, 
She taught me sweet and holy things. 
I felt her breath my temples fan, 
I learned her temperate laws to scan, 
My soul, of hers, became a conscious part; 
Her beauty melted through my inmost heart. 



Still I languished for the word 
Her sweet lips had never spoken, 
Still, from the pale shadow-land, 
There came nor voice nor token ; 
No accent of the Holy Ghost 
"Whispered of the loved and lost ; 
No bright wanderer came to tell 
If, in worlds beyond the grave. 
Life, love, and beauty dwell. 



HOURS OF LIFE 



EVENING. 

And, it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light. 

Zacuariah xiv. vii. 

"All the dawn promised shall the day fulfil, 
The glory and the grandeur of each dream; 
And every prophecy shall be achieved, 
And every joy conceded, prove a pledge 
Of some new joy to come." 

Robert Browxijtg. ("Paracelsus.) 

Wilder and lonelier grew the day : 
The vault of heaven once so high — 
Fading to infinity — 

Now bowed by its own weight of gloom, 
Seemed dark and low-browed as a tomb. 
Cold, sculptured hills, forlorn and grey, 
Like sun-forsaken Memnons, lay 
Around my drear and pathless way. 
The thunder rolled ; and loud and shrill. 
The storm-blast shrieked from hill to hill. 



3d 



HOURS OF LIFE. 

Beside the lamp within the veil 

Of the soul's temple burning pale, 

I sought, in self-renouncing prayer, 

Truth's guarded secrets to forbear, 

'Till lowly trust the right should earn 

Life's golden meanings to discern. 

I soBght in ministries of love 

The purchase of the Cross to prove — 

The mysteries of the Holy Rood 

In sorrow's pale beatitude. 

Content, through lowering clouds, to greet 

The glory of the Paraclete; 

I sought, within the inner shrine. 

The Father-God of Palestine. 



A holy light began to stream 
Athwart the cloud-rifts, like a dream 
Of heaven; and lo! a pale, sweet face. 
Of mournful grandeur and imperial grace — 
A face whose mystic sadness seemed to borrow 
Immortal beauty from that mortal sorrow — 
Looked on me; and a voice of solemn cheer 
Uttered its sweet evangels on my ear ; 



HOURS OF LIFE. dh' 



The open secrets of that eldest lore 
That seems less to reveal than to restore. 



*' Pluck thou the Life-tree's golden fruit, 
Nor seek to bare its sacred root : 
Live, and in life's perennial faith 
Renounce the heresy of death : 
Believe, and every sweet accord 
Of being, to thine ear restored, 
Shall sound articulate and clear; 
Perfected love shall banish fear, 
Knowledge and wisdom shall approve 
The divine synthesis of love." 

*' Royally the lilies grow 
On the grassy leas, 
Basking in the sun and dew, 
Swinging in the breeze. 
Doth the wild-fowl need a chart 
Through the illimitable air ? 
Heaven lies folded in thy heart; 
Seek the truth that slumbers there ; 
"Thou art Truth's eternal heir." 



^ HOURS OF LIFE. 

*' Let the shadows come and go ; 

Let the stormy north wind blow : 

Death's dark valley cannot bind thee 

In its dread abode ; 

There the Morning Star shall find thee, 

There the living God. 

Sin and sorrow cannot hide thee — 

Death and hell cannot divide thee 

From the love of God.'' 

In the mystic agony 

On the Mount of Calvary, 

The Saviour with his dying eyes 

Beheld the groves of Paradise. 

" Then weep not by the charnel stone 
Nor veil thine eyelids from the sun. 
Upward, through the death-dark glides, 
The spirit on resurgent tides 
Of light and glory on its way : 
Wilt thou by the cerements stay ?— 
Thou the risen Christ shall see 
In redeemed Humanity. 



HOURS OF LIFE. 33 

Though mourners at the portal wept, 
And angels lingered where it slept, 
The soul but tarried for a night, 
Then plumed its wings for loftier flight." 



*' Is thy heart so lonely ? — Lo, 

Ready to share thy joy and woe, 

Poor wanderers tarry at thy gate, 

The way-worn and the desolate, 

And angels at thy threshhold wait : 

Would'st thou love's holiest guerdon win — • 

Arise, and let the stranger in." 



" The friend whom not thy fickle will, 

But the deep heart within thee, still 

Yearneth to fold to its embrace, 

Shall seek thee through the realms of space. 

Keep the image Nature sealed 

On thy heart, by love annealed, 

Keep thy faith serene and pure ; 

Her royal promises are sure, 

Her sweet betrothals shall endure." 

4 



34 HOURS OF LIFE. 

*' Hope thou all things and believe ; 
And, in child-like trust, achieve 
The simplest mandates of the soul, 
The simplest good^ the nearest goal ; 
Move but the waters and their pulse 
The broad ocean shall convulse." 



" When love shall reconcile the will 
Love's mystic sorrow to fulfil, 
Its fiery baptism to share, — 
The burden of its cross to bear, — 
Earth shall to equilibrium tend. 
Ellipses shall to circles bend, 
And life's long agony shall end." 



" Then pluck the Life-tree's golden fruit, 
No blight can reach its sacred root. 
E'en though every blossom fell 
Into Hades, one by one, 
Love is deeper far than Hell — 
Shadows cannot quench the sun." 



HOURS OF LIFE. 35 

*' Can the child-heart promise more 

Than the Father hath in store ? — 

The blind shall see — the dead shall live; 

Can the man-child forfeit more 

Than the Father can forgive ? 

The Dragon, from his empire driven, 

No more shall find his place in Heaven, 

^ill e'en the Serpent power approve 

The divine potency of love." 



** Guard thy faith with holy care, — 
Mystic virtues slumber there ; 
'Tis the lamp within the soul 
Holding genii in control : 
Faith shall walk the stormy water — 
In the unequal strife prevail — 
Nor, when comes the dread avatar 
From its fiery splendors quail. 
Faith shall triumph o'er the grave, 
Love shall bless the life it gave." 



36 HOURS OF LIFE. 

I heard ; and in my heart the incarnate Word 
Uttered, serene and clear, its sweet accord — 
To Him that sitteth on the eternal throne 
All power and grace earth's discord to atone — 
To the great Soul that foldeth all in one, 
Father in Heaven, I cried, thy will be done. 

Then faintly, with my heart's low music blending, 
I heard a sound of silver wings descending — 
The Holy Dove of Peace — the promised guest, 
Folded its fragrant pinions on my breast. 

Life into lines of beauty flowed 

Around me, flexuous and free, 

The passive face of Nature showed 

A sweet, responsive sympathy, 

And dimly, through the Human, glowed 

The lineaments of Deity. 

I saw the frowning orbs of Fate 

Into a regent calm dilate — 

A sovran and superb disdain 

Of earth's fast-fleeting joy and pain j 



HOURS OF LIFE. 37 

While patience budding into peace, 
And knowledge ripening into power, 
And thought, with its pale alchymy, 
Made beautiful the passing hour ; 
'Till morn and noon-light seemed to fuse 
Their glory with its fading hues, 
As the fair outline of my day, 
From dawn to twilight's golden grey, 
Rose grandly on the prescient soul, 
Crowned with the sunset's aureole. 



Far off, among the norland hills. 

The distant thunders rolled — 

Soft rain-clouds dipped their fringes down 

Across the evening gold. 

Heaven's stormy dome was rent, and high 

Above me shone the summer sky ; 

Ever more serene it grew, 

Fading off into the blue, 

'Till the boundless hyaline 

Seemed melting into depths divine, 

And the angels came and went 

Through the opening firmament. 



38 HOURS OF LIFE. 

In all the glooming hollows lay 
A light more beautiful than day ; 
All the blossom bells waved slowly 
In the evening's golden calm, 
And the hum of distant voices 
Sounded like a vesper psalm. 

'Till dimly seen, through day's departing bloom, 
The far-off lamps of heaven began to fling 
Their trembling beams athwart the dewy gloom, 
As Evening, on the horizon's airy ring. 
Winnowing the darkness with her silver wing, 
Descended like an angel, calm and still. 



NOTES. 



Note 1. Page 19. 
Giistav Klemm in a work entitled Algemeine CuIturgescMckte dtr 
Menscheit, divides the human races into tlie active and passive : 
the former, (embracing only the so-called Caucassian race,) marked 
by restless activity and aspiration, progress and the spirit of doubt 
and enquiry, the latter, (comprising all the remaining races,) by an 
absence or inferiority of these characteristics. 

Note 2. Page 21. 
" The priestesses of Dodona assert that two black pigeons flew 
from Thebes in Egypt; one of which settled in Lybia, the other 
among themselves : which latter, resting on a beech-tree declared 
with a human voice that here was to be the oracle of Jove."— 
Herodotus. Book II, ch. 55. 

Note 3. Page 21. 
"The Maenads, in their wild incantations, carried serpents in their 
hands, and with frantic gestures, cried out Eva! Eva! Ephiphanius 
thinks that this invocation related to the mother of mankind ; but 
I am inclined to believe that it was the word Epha or Opha, ren- 
dered by the Greeks, Ophis, a serpent. I take Abaddon to have 
been the name of the same ophite God whose worship has so long 
infected the world. The learned Heinsius makes Abaddon the 
same as the serpent Python."— Jaco6 Bryant's Analysis of Ancient 
Mythology. 

" While Maenads cry aloud Evoe, Evoe ! 
That voice that is contagion to the world." 

Shelley's Prometheus 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



Memon^ shall stain the wai-p 

In night-shade wet with twilight dew; 
Hope, with streaks of morning gold, 

Strike the fabric through and through. 



43 



THE GOLDEN BALL. 



A TALE OP FAERIE 



" In olden clayes 
All was the land fulfilled of Faerie— 
The Elf Queen, with her joUie companie. 
Danced full oft in many a grassy mede. 
This was the old opinion, as I rede. — 
I speak of many hundred years ago — 
But now can no man see the Eire's mo." 

Chaucer. 

In the hushed and silken chamber 
Of my childhood, Eleanore, 

When the day-light's dying amber 
Faded on the dusky floor ; 



When the village bells were ringing 
At the hour of evening prayer, 

And the little birds were winging 
Homeward, through the dewy air ; 



44 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Wooing me to twilight slumbers, 
In that soft and balmy clime, 

Often have I heard the numbers 
Of the ancient fairy-rhyme ; — 



Listened to the mythic stories 

Taught when fancy's charmed sway 

Filled with visionary glories 
All my childhood's golden day. 



In the dull and drear December, 
Sitting by the hearth-light's gleam. 

Often do I still remember 

Tales that haunt me like a dream. 



Often I recall the story 

Of the outcast child, forlorn, 

Doomed to roam in forest hoary, 
From the step-dame's cruel scorn. 



THE GOLDEN BALL. 45 

Long she wandered, sad and lonely, 

Till the daylight's dying bloom 
Left one silver planet only 

Trembling through the twilight gloom. 



Orphaned in this world of sorrow, 
Chased by savage beasts of prey. 

Doomed, from frantic fears, to borrow 
Strength to bear her on her way. 



Still she wandered, faint and weary. 
Through the forest, wild and wide, 

Till her thoughts grew dark and dreary. 
And her heart with terror died. 



When a gracious fairy, wandering 
Forth to greet the evening star, 

Found her near a torrent, pondering 
How to pass its watery bar. 



46 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Tenderly the gentle stranger 
Led her to the foaming fall ; 

There, to guide her feet from danger, 
Down she fluns a Golden Ball. 



Shrined within its charmed hollow. 
Many a mystic virtue lay ; — 

Safely might her footsteps follow 
Wheresoe'er it led the way. 



Throbbed her heart with fear and wonder,. 

As the magic globe of gold 
Onward through the rushing thunder 

Of the stormy torrent rolled : 



On, where boundless forests, burning, 
Scorched the air and scathed the sight, 

From earth's livid features turning 
Back the solemn pall of night : 



THE GOLDEN BALL. 



Still on golden axis rolling, 
Onward, onwar.d still it sped — 

Still the maid, her fears controlling, 
Fleetly following as it fled : 



While the raging waters bore her 
Safely o'er their hollow way. 

And the flame-lights flashing o'er her 
Paled like stars at break of day — 



Paled before her virgin honor — 
Paled before her love and truth 

Savage natures gazing on her, 
Turned to pity and to ruth. 



So she passed through flood and forest- 
Passed the ogre's yawning gate, 

And when danger threatened sorest, 
Calmly trod the path of fate. 



4& MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Till the night that seemed so dreary. 

Grew more beautiful than day ; 
And her little feet, so weary, 

Glided gently on their way — 



Glided o'er the grassy meadows 

Steeped in perfume, starred with dew, 

Glided 'neath the forest shadows 
Till the moonlight slanting through, 



Gleamed athwart a fountain sleeping 
Calmly in its hollow cells, 

Where were little fishes leaping 
All about the lily-bells. 



Soon the lilies seemed to shiver. 
And a tremor shook the air — 

Curdled all the sleeping river — 
Woke the thunder in its lairl 



THE GOLDEN BALL. 49 

Lo ! a fish from out the water 

Rising, oped its rosy gills ; — 
'Twas the gracious fairy's daughter, 

And the air with music thrills, 



As a sudden glory, bending 

O'er the fountain's mystic gleam, 

Changed her to a form transcending 
Fantasy's divinest dream. 



Water blooms, with olive twining, 
Crowned a brow serenely sweet, 

Robes, like woven lilies shining, 
Flowed in folds about her feet. 



With a look of soft imploring. 
Thus she spoke, in rippling tones, 

Sweet as summer waters, pouring 
Over reeds and pebble-stones ; — 
5 



50 MISCELLANEOLS FOEMS. 

*' Thou liast conquered, little stranger ! 

All thy bitter trials past, 
Safe, through sorrow and through danger, 

Thou hast won the goal at last. 



Lift me from the silent water — 
Let me on thy bosom lie, 

For I am a fairy's daughter 
Thralled by cruel sorcery. 



*» Doomed, beneath the wave, forever 
Like the virgin Truth, to dwell, 

Till a mortal hand shall sever, 
Link by link, the charmed spell. 



Till a faithful heart shall fold me. 

To its home of truth and love : — 
So the ancient Fates have told me, 

And the answering stars approve. 



THE GOLDEN BALL. 51 

** Lift me, then, from out the river, 
Now my charmed life doth cease — 

Henceforth I am thine forever, 

Guard me ; for my name is Peace." 



Thus, dear child, the mythic story 
Chimes to truth's unerring strain, 

As the moon, in softened glory, 
Sings the day-star's sweet refrain. 



Thus, though step-dame Nature chide thee. 
And the snares of passion thrall, 

Unto heavenly Peace shall guide thee 
Faith's unerring Golden Ball. 



52 



MOONRISE IN MAY. 



Long lights gleam o'er the western wold 
Kindling the brown moss into gold — 
The bright day fades into the blue 
Of the far hollows, dim Avith dew — 
The breeze comes laden with perfume 
From many an orchard white with bloom, 
And all the mellow air is fraught 
With beauty beyond Fancy's thought. 



Outspread beneath me, breathing balm 
Into the evening's golden calm, 
Lie trellised gardens, thickly sown 
With nodding lilacs, newly blown, 



MOONRISE IN MAY. 53 

Borders with hyacinthus plumed, 

And beds with purple pansies gloomed ; 

Cold snow-drops, jonquils pale and prim, 

And flamy tulips, burning dim 

In the cool twilight, till they fold 

In sleep their oriflammes of gold. 



With many a glimmering interchange 
Of moss and flowers and terraced range, 
The pleasant garden slopes away 
Into the gloom of shadows grey. 
Where, darkly green, the churchyard lies 
With all its silent memories : 
There the first violets love to blow 
About the head-stones, leaning low ; 
There, from the golden willows, swing 
The first green garlands of the spring, 
And the first blue bird builds her nest 
By the old belfry's umbered crest. 



Beyond, where groups of stately trees 
Waiting their vernal draperies, 



54 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Stand outlined on the evening sky, 
The golden lakes of sunset lie ; 
With many-colored isles of light, 
Purple and pearl and crysolite, 
And realms of cloud-land, floating far 
Beyond the horizon's dusky bar. 
Now, fading from the lurid bloom 
Of twilight to a silver gloom, 
As the fair moon's ascending beam 
Melts all things to a holy dream. 



So fade the cloud-wreaths from my soul 

Beneath thy solemn, soft control, 

Enchantress of the stormy seas, 

Priestess of Night's high mysteries! 

Thy ray can pale the north-light's plume^ 

And, where the throbbing stars illume 

With their far-palpitating light 

The holy cloisters of the night. 

Thy presence can entrance their beams,, 

And lull them to diyiner dreams. 



MOONRISE IN MAY. 55 

To thee belong the silent spheres 
Of memory, — the enchanted years 
Of the dead Past, — the shrouded woes 
That sleep in sculptural repose. 



Thy solemn light doth interfuse 

The magic world wherein I muse, 

With something too divinely fair 

For earthly hope to harbor there ; — 

A faith that reconciles the will 

Life's mystic sorrow to fulfil — 

A benison of love that falls 

From the serene and silent halls 

Of night, till through the lonely room 

A heavenly odor seems to bloom, 

And lilies of eternal peace 

Glow through the moonlight's golden fleece. 



56 



THE TRAILING ARBUTUS 



There's a flower that grows by the greenwood tree, 

In its desolate beauty more dear to me, 

Than all that bask in the noontide beam 

Through the long, bright summer by fount and stream. 

Like a pure hope, nursed beneath sorrow's wing, 

Its timid buds from the cold moss spring, 

Their delicate hues like the pink sea-shell, 

Or the shaded blush of the hyacinth's bell, 

Their breath more sweet than the faint perfume 

That breathes from the bridal orange-bloom. 



THE TRAILING ARBUTUS. 57 

It is not found by the garden wall, 

It wreaths no brow in the festal hall, 

But it dwells in the depths of the shadowy wood, 

And shines, like a star, in the solitude. 

Never did numbers its name prolong, 

Ne'er hath it floated on wings of song, 

Bard and minstrel have passed it by, 

And left it, in silence and shade, to die. 

But with joy to its cradle the wild-bees come, 

And praise its beauty with drony hum. 

And children love, in the season of spring. 

To watch for its earliest blossoming. 



In the dev/y morn of an April day. 

When the traveler lingers along the way. 

When the sod is sprinkled with tender green 

Where rivulets water the earth, unseen. 

When the floating fringe on the maple's crest 

Rivals the tulip's crimson vest. 

And the budding leaves of the birch-trees throw 

A trembling shade on the turf below. 

When my flower awakes from its dreamy rest 

And yields its lips to the sweet south-west, 



58. MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Then, in those beautiful days of spring, 

With hearts as light as the wild-bird's wing, 

Flinging their tasks and their toys aside, 

Gay little groups through the wood-paths glide, 

Peeping and peering among the trees 

As they scent its breath on the passing breeze, 

Hunting about, among lichens grey, 

And the tangled mosses beside the way, 

Till they catch the glance of its quiet eye, 

Like light that breaks through a cloudy sky. 



For me, sweet blossom, thy tendrils cling 
Round my heart of hearts, as in childhood's spring. 
And thy breath, as it floats on the wandering air. 
Wakes all the music of memory there. 
Thou recallest the time when, a fearless child, 
I roved all day through the wood-walks wild, 
Seeking thy blossoms by bank and brae 
Wherever the snow-drifts had melted away.' 



Now as I linger, mid crowds alone, 
Haunted by echoes of music flown, 



THE TRAILING ARBUTUS. 59 

When the shadows deepen around my way 
And the light of reason but leads astray, 
When affections, nurtured with fondest care 
In the trusting heart, become traitors there, 
When, weary of all that the world bestows, 
I turn to nature for calm repose, 
How fain my spirit, in some far glen. 
Would fold her wings, mid thy flowers again ! 



00 



A STILL DAY IN AUTUMN. 



I love to wander through the woodlands hoary, 
In the soft gloom of an autumnal day, 

When Summer gathers up her robes of glory 
And, like a dream of beauty, glides away. 



How through each loved, familiar path she lingers, 
Serenely smiling through the golden mist, 

Tinting the wild grape with her dewy fingers, 
Till the cool emerald turns to amethyst, — 



Kindling the faint stars of the hazel, shining 

To light the gloom of Autumn's mouldering halls. 

With hoary plumes the clematis entwining, 

Where, o'er the rock, her withered garland falls. 



A STILL DAY IN AUTUMN. 61 

Warm lights are on the sleepy uplands waning 
Beneath dark clouds along the horizon rolled, 

Till the slant sunbeams through their fringes raining, 
Bathe all the hills in melancholy gold. 



The moist winds breathe of crisped leaves and flowers, 
In the damp hollows of the woodland sown, 

Mingling the freshness of autumnal showers 
With spicy airs from cedarn alleys blown. 



Beside the brook and on the umbered meadow, 
Where yellow fern-tufts fleck the faded ground, 

With folded lids beneath their palmy shadow, 
The gentian nods, in dewy slumbers bound. 



Upon those soft, fring'd lids the bee sits brooding 
Like a fond lover loth to say farewell ; 

Or, with shut wings, through silken folds intruding, 
Creeps near her heart his drowsy tale to tell. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



The little birds upon the hillside lonely, 
Flit noislessly along from spray to spray, 

Silent as a sweet, wandering thought, that only 
Shows its bright wings and softly glides away. 



The scentless flowers, in the warm sunlight dreaming, 
Forget to breathe their fulness of delight, — 

And through the tranced woods soft airs are streaming, 
Still as the dew-fall of the summer niffht. 



So, in my heart, a sweet, unwonted feeling 
Stirs, like the wind in ocean's hollow shell. 

Through all its secret chambers sadly stealing, 
Yet finds no words its mystic charm to tell 



63 



TO THE ANGEL OF DEATH. 



Thou ancient Mystery ! thy solemn night — 
Pierced by attempered rays from that far realm 

That lies beyond, dark with excess of light — 
No more the shuddering spirit shall o'erwhelm. 



No more thy charnel glooms the soul appal, 
Pale Azrael ! awful eidolon of Death ! — 

The dawn-light breaks athwart thy glimmering hall, 
And thy dank vapors own the morning's breath. 



Too long the terror of the dread unknown 

Hath the wrung heart with hopeless anguish riven ; 

The blasting splendors of the fiery throne 

** Burning within the inmost veil of Heaven— " 



64 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

The gloom of that great glory, which of old 
Haunted the vision of the prophet's dream, 

When the archangel of the Lord foretold 

The day of doom, by dark Hiddekel's stream. 



In vain, through lingering years, I turned the page 
Rich with these sacred records of the past, 

Hope languished, and no legend could assuage 
The rayless gloom thy awful shadow cast. 



In dread apocalypse, I saw thee borne 

On the pale steed, triumphant o'er the doomed, 

Till the rent Heavens like a scroll were torn, 
And hollow earth her hundred isles entombed. 



In vain I questioned the cold stars and kept 
Lone vigils by the grave of buried love, 

No angel wing athwart the darkness swept, 
No voice vouchsafed my sorrow to reprove. 



TO THE ANGEL OF DEATH. 65 

Was it the weight of that remorseless v;oe, 
The lonely anguish of that long despair — 

That made thy marble lips at length forego 
Their silence at my soul's unceasing prayer ? 



Henceforth, the sorrowing heart its pulse shall stil 
To solemn cadences of sweet repose, 

Content life's mystic passion to fulfil 

In the great calm that from thy promise flows. 



"Welcome as the white feet of those who bring 
Glad tidings of great joy unto the world, 

Shall fall the shadow of thy silver wing 
Over the weary couch of woe unfurled. 



A heavenly halo kindles round thy brow ; 

Beyond, the palms of Eden softly wave, 
Bright messengers athwart the empyrean go, 

And love, to love, makes answer o'er the grave. 



66 



THE RAVEN." 



Raven, from the dim dominions 
On the Night's Plutonian shore, 

Oft I hear thy dusky pinions 

Wave and flutter round my door — 

See the shadow of thy pinions 
Float along the moon-lit floor ; 



Often, from the oak-woods glooming 
Round some grim, ancestral tower, 

In the lurid distance looming — 
Some high, solitary tower — 

I can hear thy storm-cry booming 
Through the lonely midnight hour. 



**THE RAVEN." 67 

When the moon is at the zenith, 
Thou dost haunt the moated hall, 

Where the marish flower greeneth 
O'er the waters, like a pall — 

Where the House of Usher leaneth, 
Darkly nodding to its fall : 



There I see thee, dimly gliding — 
See thy black plumes waving slow — 

In its hollow casements hiding, 
When their shadow yawns below. 

To the sullen tarn confiding 
The dark secrets of their woe. 



When the midnight stars are burning 
In their cressets, silver clear, — 

When Ligea's spirit yearning 

For the earth-life, wanders near, — 

When Morella's soul returning, 
Wierdly whispers '' I am here " — 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Then, all night, I see thee wheeling 
Round a couch of India's loom, 

Where a shrouded form, congealing 
In the cerements of the tomb, 

Sleeps beneath the vaulted ceiling 
Of Rowena's bridal room. 



Once, within a realm enchanted, 

On a far isle of the seas, 
By unearthly visions haunted, 

By unearthly melodies. 
Where the evening sunlight slanted 

Golden through the garden trees, — 



Where the dreamy moonlight dozes, 
Where the early violets dwell. 

Listening to the silver closes 
Of a lyric loved too well, 

Suddenly, among the roses. 
Like a cloud, thy shadow fell. 



•' THE RAVEN." 69 

Once, where Ulalume lies sleeping, 

Hard by Auber's haunted mere, 
With the ghouls a vigil keeping, 

On that night of all the year. 
Came thy sounding pinions, sweeping 

Through the leafless woods of Weir ! 



^^Oft, with Proserpine I wander 

On the Night's Plutonian shore, 
Hoping, fearing, while I ponder 

On thy loved and lost Lenore — 
On the demon doubts that sunder 
Soul from soul forever more ; — 



Trusting, though with sorrow laden. 
That when life's dark dream is o'er, 

By whatever name the maiden 
Lives within thy mystic lore, 

Eiros, in that distant Aidenn, 

Shall his Charmion meet once more. 



A NIGHT IN AUGUST. 



"And thenceforth all that once was fair, 
Grew fairer/' 

How softly comes the Summer wind 

At evening o'er the hill, 
Forever murmuring of thee 

When busy crowds are still : 
The way-side flowers seem to guess 

And whisper of my happiness. 



The jasmine twines her snowy stars 

Into a fairer wreath ; 
The lily lifts her proud tiars 

More royally beneath ; 
The snow-drop with her fairy bells, 
In silver time, the story tells. 



A NIGHT IN AUGUST. 71 

Through all the dusk and dewy hours, 

The banded stars above, 
Are singing, in their airy towers, 

The melodies of love ; 
And clouds of shadowy silver fly 
All night, like doves, athwart the sky. 



Fair Dian lulls the throbbing stars 

' Into elysian dreams ; 
And, rippling through my lattice bars, 

Her brooding glory streams 
Around me, like the golden shower 
That rained throuofh Danae's o-aarded tower. 



And when the waning moon doth glide 

Into the valleys grey, 
When, like the music of a dream, 

The night wind dies away. 
When all the way-side flowers have furled 
Their wings, with morning dews impearled, 



72 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

A low, bewildering melody 

Seems murmuring in my ear — 

Tones such as in the twilight wood, 
The aspen thrills to hear, 

When Faunus slumbers on the hill, 

And all the entranced boughs are still. 



73 



MORNING. 



FEOM "the sleeping BEAITTT. 



And now the kindling sunbeams threw 
Their level light athwart the dew, 

And tipt the hills with flame : 
And all the forest boughs were stirred 
With music, as from bee and bird, 

A mingling murmur came. 



From out its depths of tangled gloom^ 
There swept a breath of dewy bloom ; 

And, from the valleys dim, 
A cloud of fragrant incense stole. 
As if each violet breathed its soul 

Into that floral hymn. 



74 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Loud neighed the steed within his stall, 
The cock crowed on the castle wall, 

The warder wound his horn ; 
The linnet sang in leafy bower, 
The swallows, twittering from the tower, 

Chirped to the rosy morn. 



But fresher than the rosy morn, 
And blither than the bugle horn, 

The maiden's heart doth prove. 
Who, as her beaming eyes awake. 
Beholds a double morning break, 

The dawn of lisrht and love ! 



THE LAST FLOWERS. 



Dost thou remember that Autumnal day 

When by the Seekonk's lonely wave we stood, 

And marked the languor of repose that lay, 
Softer than sleep, on valley, wave and wood ? 



A trance of holy sadness seemed to lull 

The charmed earth and circumambient air. 

And the low murmur of the leaves seemed full 
Of a resigned and passionless despair. 



Though the warm breath of Summer lingered still 
In the lone paths where late her footsteps passed, 

The pallid star-flowers on the purple hill 

Sighed dreamily " we are the last ! the last ! " 



76 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

I stood beside thee, and a dream of heaven 

Around me like a a golden halo fell ! 
Then the bright veil of phantasy was riven, 

And my lips murmured " fare thee vi^ell ! — farewell ! " 



I dared not listen to thy words, nor turn 
To meet the mystic language of thine eyes, 

I onlyjTeZ^ their power, and in the urn 

Of memory, treasured their sweet rhapsodies. 



We parted then, forever — and the hours 

Of that bright day were gathered to the past — 

But, through long, wintry nights, I heard the flowers 
Sigh dreamily, "we are the last ! — the last ! " 



ARCTURUS 



WRITTEN IN OCTOBER, 



"Our star looks through the storm." 

Star of resplendent front ! thy glorious eye 
Shines on me still from out yon clouded sky — 
Shines on me through the horrors of a night 
More drear than ever fell o'er day so bright — 
Shines till the envious Serpent slinks away 
And pales and trembles at thy steadfast ray. 



Hast thou not stooped from heaven, fair star ! to be 
So near me in this hour of agony ? — 
So near — so bright— so glorious, that I seem 
To lie entranced as in some wondrous dream — 



78 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

All earthly joys forgot — all earthly fear 
Purged in the light of thy resplendent sphere : 
Gazing upon thee, till thy flaming eye 
Dilates and kindles through the stormy sky ; 
While, in its depths withdrawn — far, far away- 
I see the dawn of a diviner day. 



79 



ARCTURUS. 



WRITTEN IN APRIL. 



" Nec morti esse locum, sed viva volare 

Sideris in numerum at que alto succedcre ccelo/' 
Virgil, Geor. IV 



Again, imperial star! thy mystic beams 

Pour their wild splendors on my waking dreams, 

Piercing the blue depths of the vernal night 

With opal shafts and flames of ruby light ; 

Filling the air with melodies, that come 

Mournful and sweet, from the dark, sapphire dome — 

Wierd sounds, that make the cheek with wonder pale. 

As their wild symphonies o'ersweep the gale. 



"8ft MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

For, in that gorgeous world, I fondly deem, 

Dwells the freed soul of one whose earthly dream 

Was full of beauty, majesty and wo ; 

One who, in that pure realm of thine, doth grow 

Into a power serene — a solemn joy, 

Undimmed by earthly sorrow or alloy ; 

Sphered far above the dread, (phantasmal gloom — 

The penal tortures of that living tomb 

Wherein his earth-life languished; — who shall tell 

The drear enchantments of that Dantean hell ! 



"Was it not Fate, whose earthly name is Sorrow," 

That bade him, with prophetic soul, to borrow 

From all the stars that fleck night's purple dome, 

Thee, bright Arcturus ! for his Eden home : — 

Was it not Fate, whose name in heaven above, 

Is Truth and Goodness and unchanging Love, — 

Was it not Fate, that bade him turn to thee 

As the bright regent of his destiny ? — 

For when thine orb passed from the lengthening gloom 

Of autumn nights, a morning star to bloom 

Beside Aurora's eastern gates of pearl, 



ARCTURUS. 8t 

He passed from earth, his weary wings to furl 

In the cool rales of Heaven : thence, through yon sea 

Of starry isles, to hold his course to thee. 



Now, when in April's cloudless nights, I turn 
To where thy pharos mid the stars doth burn — 
A glorious cynosure — I read in thee 
The rune of Virgil's golden augury ; * 
And deem that o'er thy seas of silver calm, 
Floats the far perfume of the Eden palm. 



* For there is no place of annihilation : but alive they mount up 
each into his o-svn order of star, and tak^ their high seat in the 
heavens.— Georgics, Book IV. 



82 



THE MORNING GLORY, 



When the peach ripens to a rosy bloom, 
When purple grapes glow through the leafy gloom 
Of trellised vines, bright wonder, thou dost come, 
Cool as a star dropt from night's azure dome, 
To light the early morning, that doth break 
More softly beautiful for thy sweet sake. 



Thy fleeting glory to my fancy seems 

Like the strange flowers we gather in our dreams ; 

Hovering so lightly o'er the slender stem, 

Wearing so meekly the proud diadem 

Of penciled rays, that gave the name you bear 

Unblamed amid the flowers, from year to year. 



THE MORNING GLORY. 83^ 

The tawny lily, flecked with jetty studs, 

Pard-like, and dropping through long, pendant buds 

Her purple anthers ; — nor the poppy, bowed 

In languid sleep, enfolding in a cloud 

Of drowsy odors her too fervid heart, 

Pierced by the day-god's barbed and burning dart ;— 

Nor the swart sunflower, her dark brows enrolled 

With their broad carcanets of living gold — 

A captive princess — following the car 

Of her proud conqueror ; — nor that sweet star, 

The evening primrose, pallid with strange dreams 

Born of the wan moon's melancholy beams ; 

Nor any flower that doth its tendrils twine 

Around my memory, hath a charm like thine. 

Child of the morning, passionless and fair 

As some ethereal creature of the air, 

Waiting not for the bright lord of the hours 

To weary of thy bloom in sultry bowers ; 

Nor like the summer rose, that one by one, 

Yields her fair, fragrant petals to the sun, 

Faint with the envenomed sweetness of his smile, 

That doth to lingering death her race beguile, 



84 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

But, as some spirit of the air doth fade 
Into the light from its own essence rayed, 
So, Glory of the morning ! fair and cold. 
Soon in thy circling halo dost thou fold 
Thy virgin bloom, and from our vision hide 
That form too fair, on earth, unsullied to abide.* 



**"nie disk of the Convolvulus, after remaining expanded for 
a few hours, gathers itself up within the five star-like rays that in- 
tersect the corolla until it is entirely concealed from sight." — St. 
Pierre. 



85 



THE PHANTOM VOICE. 



" It is a phantom voice : 
Again !— again ! how solemnly it falls 
Into my heart of hearts!" 

Scenes from "Politian.' 



Through the solemn hush of midnight, 

How sadly on my ear, 
Falls the echo of a harp whose tones 

I never more may hear ! 



A wild, unearthly melody, 
Whose monotone doth move, 

The saddest, sweetest cadences 
Of sorrow and of love : 



88 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Till the burden of remembrance weighs 

Like lead upon my heart, 
And the shadow, on my soul that sleeps, 

Will never more depart. 



The ghastly moonlight, gliding 

Like a phantom through the gloom. 

How it fills with solemn fantasies 
My solitary room ! 



And the sighing winds of Autumn, 
Ah ! how sadly they repeat 

That low, bewildering melody, 
So mystically sweet ! 



I hear it softly murmuring 
At midnight o'er the hill, 

Or across the wide savannas, 
When all beside is still. 



THE PHANTOM VOICE. 87 

I hear it in the moaning 

Of the melancholy main — 
In the rushing of the night-wind — 

The rhythm of the rain. 



E'en the wild-flowers of the forest, 
Waving sadly to and fro, 

But whisper to my boding heart, 
The burden of its wo. 



And the spectral moon, now paling 
And fading, seems to say — 

•=' I leave thee to remembrances 
That will not pass away." 



Ah, through all the solemn midnight, 
How mournful 't is to hark 

To the voices of the silence — 
The whisper of the dark ! 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

In vain I turn, some solace 

Fron the distant stars to crave : — 

They are shining on thy sepulchre. 
Are smiling on thy grave. 



How I weary of their splendor ! 

All night long, they seem to say, 
" We are lonely — sad and lonely — 

Far away — far, far away ! " 



Thus, through all the solemn midnight, 
That phantom voice I hear ; 

As it echoes through the silence, 
When no earthly sound is near. 



And though dawn-light yields to noon-light, 
And though darkness turns to day, 

They but leave me to remembrances 
That will not pass away. 



89 



RESURGAMUS 



I mourn thee not : no words can tell 
The solemn calm that tranced my breast, 

When first I knew thy soul had past 
From earth to its eternal rest ; 



For doubt and darkness, o'er thy head, 
Forever waved their Condor wings ; 

And in their murky shadows, bred 
Forms of unutterable things ; 



And, all around thy silent hearth, 

The glory that once blushed and bloomed, 
Was but a dim-remembered dream 

Of ** the old time entombed." 



90 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Few were the hearts whose music woke 
To thy wierd harp, that loved to dwell 

On far-off, fairy-lands forlorn — 
The wild, sweet harp of Israfel. 



Those melancholy eyes that seemed 
To look beyond all time, or turned 

On eyes they loved, so softly beamed — 
How few their mystic language learned. 



How few could read their depths, or know 
The proud, high heart that dwelt alone 

In gorgeous palaces of woe, 

Like Eblis on his burning throne. 



For ah ! no human heart could brook 
The darkness of thy doom to share, 

And not a living eye could look 
Unscathed upon thy dread despair. 



RESURGAMUS. 01 

I mourn thee not : life had no lore 
Thy soul in morphean dews to steep, 

Love's lost nepenthe to restore, 
Or bid the avenging sorrow sleep. 



Yet, while the night of life shall last, 
While the slow stars above me roll, 

In the heart's solitudes I keep 
A solemn vigil for thy soul. 



I tread dim, cloistral aisles, where all 
Beneath are solemn-sounding graves 

While o'er the oriel, like a pall, 
A dark, funereal shadow waves. 



There, kneeling by a lampless shrine, 
Alone amid a place of tombs, 

My erring spirit pleads for thine 
Till light along the orient blooms. 



93 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Oh, when thy faults are all forgiven. 
When all my sins are purged away, 

May our freed spirits meet in heaven, 
Where darkness melts to perfect day. 



There may thy wondrous harp awake 
And there my ransomed soul, with thee, 

Behold the eternal morning break 
In glory o'er the jasper sea. 



«^ r. 



TO THE MORNING STAR 



" Fair crescent star, upborne on waves of light, — 
Bud of the morning, that must fade so soon." 

Dalgoni. 



Sweet Phosphor ! star of Love and Hope, 

Again I see thy silver horn 
Rise o'er the dark and dewy slope 

Of yonder hills that hide the morn. 



All night, the glooming shadows lay 
So thick on valley, wave, and wold, 

I scarce could deem the buried day 
Would ever pierce their shrouding fold 



94 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Yet, even now, a line of light 

Comes slowly surging o'er the dark ; 

And lo ! thy crescent, floating bright 
And buoyant as a fairy bark. 



But ah, the solemn stars of night — 
The distant stars that long have set — 

How can I, in thy nearer light 

Of love and hope, their smile forget ?- 



The stars that trembled through my dream- 
That spoke in accents faint and far — 

Can I forget their pensive beam, 

For thine, my radiant morning star ? 



No dawn-light in my soul can wake 
One hope to make the world more fair ; 

No noon-tide ray illume the lake 

Of dark remembrance, brooding there j 



TO THE MORNING STAR. 59 

But Night comes down the paling west, 
With mystic glories on her brow — 

She lays her cold hand on my breast, 
And bids, for me, the lotus blow : 



She bears me on her Lethean tides 
To lands by living waters fed : 

She lifts the cloudy veil that hides 
The dim campagnas of the dead. 



Down the long corridor of dreams, 

She leads me silently away ; 
Till, through its shadowy portal, streams 

The dawn of that diviner Day ! 



96 



ON A STATUE OF DAVID.* 



Ay, this is he ; the bold and gentle boy, 

That in lone pastures by the mountain's side, 

Guarded his fold, and through the midnight sky, 
Saw on the blast the God of battles ride ; 

Beheld his bannered armies on the height, 

And heard their clarion sound through all the stormy 
night. 



Though his fair locks lie all unshorn, and bare 
To the bold toying of the mountain wind, 

A conscious glory haunts the o'ershadowing air, 
And waits, with glittering coil, his brows to bind, 

While his proud temples bend superbly down. 

As if they bore, e'en now, the burden of a crown. 



* Suggested by a model executed by Thomas F. Hoppin, of 
Providence. 



ON A STATCE OF DAVID. 97 

Though a stern sorrow slumbers in his eyes, 
As if his prophet glance foresaw the day 

When the dark waters o'er his soul should rise, 
And friends and lovers wander far away ; 

Yet the graced impress of that floral mouth 

Breathes of love's golden dream and the voluptuou? 
south. 



Peerless in beauty as the prophet star, 
That, in the dewy trances of the dawn, 

Floats o'er the solitary hills afar. 

And brings sweet tidings of the lingering morn ; 

Or weary at the day-god's loitering wain, 

Strikes on the harp of light, a soft, prelusive strain. 



So his wild harp, with psaltery and shawm, 
Awoke the nations in thick darkness furled, 

While mystic winds from Gilead's groves of balm, 
Wafted its sweet hosannas through the world ; 

So, when the day-spring from on high, he sang. 

With joy the ancient hills and lonely valleys rang, 
s 



98 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Ay, this is he ; the minstrel, prophet, king ; 

Before whose arm, princes and warriors sank ; 
Who dwelt beneath Jehovah's mighty wing. 

And from the " river of his pleasures " drank ; 
Or, through the rent pavilions of the storm, 
Beheld the cloud of fire that veiled his awful form. 



And now he stands as when in Elah's vale. 
Where warriors set the battle in array, 

He met the Titan in his ponderous mail, 

Whose haughty challenge, many a summer's day 

Rang through the border hills, while all the host 

Of faithless Israel heard, and trembled at his boast : 



Till the slight stripling from the mountain fold, 
Stood, all unarmed, amid their sounding shields, 

And in his youth's first bloom, devoutly bold. 
Dared the grim champion of a thousand fields : 

So stands he now, as in Jehovah's might 

Glorying, he met the foe and won the immortal fight. 



99 



WOOD-WALKS IN SPRING 



" Pleasure sits in the flower cups, and breathes itself out in fra- 
grance." 

Rahel. 



As the fabled stone into music woke 
When the morning sun o'er the marble broke, 
So wakes the heart from its stern repose, 
As, o'er brow and bosom, the spring wind blows ; 
So it stirs and trembles, as each low sigh 
Of the breezy south comes murmuring by : 
Murmuring by, like a voice of love, 
Wooing us forth amid flowers to rove ; 
Breathing of meadow-paths, thickly sown 
With pearls, from the blossoming fruit trees blown, 



100 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

And of banks that slope to the southern sky, 
Where languid violets love to lie. 

No foliage droops o'er the wood-path now, 
No dark vines, swinging from bough to bough ; 
But a trembling shadow of silvery green 
Falls through the young leaf's tender screen, 
Like the hue that borders the snowdrop's bell, 
Or lines the lid of an Indian shell ; 
And a fairy light, like the firefly's glow, 
Flickers and fades on the grass below. 

There the pale anemone lifts her eye, 
To look at the clouds as they wander by ; 
■Or lurks in the shade of a palmy fern. 
To gather fresh dews in her waxen urn. 
Where the moss lies thick on the brown earth's breast. 
The shy little mayflower weaves her nest : 
But the south wind blows o'er the fragrant loam, 
And betrays the path to her wood-land home. 

Already the green-budding, birchen spray 
Winnows the balm from the breath of May ; 
And the aspen thrills to a low, sweet tone 
From the reedy bugle of Faunas blown. 



WOOD-WALKS IN SPRING. 101 

In the tangled coppice, the dwarf-oak weaves 
Her fringe-like blossoms and crimson leaves; 
The sallows their delicate buds unfold 
Into downy feathers bedropped with gold ; 
While, thick as stars in the midnight sky, 
In the dark, wet meadows the cowslips lie. 

A love-tint flushes the wind-flower's cheek, 
Rich melodies gush from the violet's beak ; 
On the rifts of the rock the wild columbines grow, 
Their heavy honey-cups bending low ; 
As a heart which vague, sweet thoughts oppress, 
Droops with its burden of happiness. 

There the waters drip from their moss-riramed wells, 
With a sound like the tinkling of silver bells. 
Or fall, with a mellow and flute-like flow, 
Through the channeled clefts cf the rock below. 

Soft music gushes in every tone, 
And perfume in every breeze is blown ; 
The flower in fragrance, the bird in song, 
The glittering wave, as it glides along ; 
All, breathe the incense of boundless bliss. 
The eloquent music of happiness. 



102 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Yet sad would the spring-time of Nature seem 

To the soul that wanders 'mid life's dark dream, 

Its glory a meteor that sweeps the sky, 

A blossom that floats on the storm-wind by ; 

If it woke no thought of that starry clime 

Beyond the desolate seas of Time ; 

If it nurtured no delicate flower, to blow 

On the hills where the palm and the amaranth grow. 



103 



LINES WRITTEN IN NOVEMBER. 



Farewell the forest shade, the twilight grove, 
The turfy path with fern and flowers inwove, 
Where through long, summer days, I wandered far, 
Till warned of evening by her folding star. 
No more I linger by the fountain's play. 
Where arching boughs shut out the sultry ray. 
Making at noontide hours a dewy gloom 
O'er the moist marge, where weeds and wild flowers 

bloom ; 
Till, from the western sun, a glancing flood 
Of arrowy radiance filled the twilight wood, 
Glinting athwart each leafy, verdant fold, 
And flecking all the turf with drops of gold. 



104 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Sweet sang the wild bird, on the waving bough, 
Where cold November winds are wailing now ; 
The chirp of insects on the sunny lea, 
And the low, drousy bugle of the bee, 
Are silent all ; closed is their vesper lay, 
Borne by the breeze of Autumn far away : 
Yet, still the withered heath I love to rove. 
The bare, brown meadow, and the leafless grove ; 
Still love to tread the bleak hill's rocky side. 
Where nodding asters wave in purple pride; 
Or, from its summit, listen to the flow 
Of the dark waters, booming far below. 
Still through the tangling, pathless copse I stray 
Where sere and rustling leaves obstruct the way, 
To find the last, pale blossom of the year, 
That strangely blooms when all is dark and drear ; 
The wild^ witch hazel, fraught with mystic power 
To ban or bless, as sorcery rules the hour. 
Then, homeward wending, thro' the dusky vale 
Where winding rills their evening damps exhale. 
Pause by the dark pool, in whose sleeping wave 
Pale Dian loves her golden locks to lave ; 
In the hushed fountain's heart, serene and cold, 



LINES WRITTEN IN NOVEMBER. 105 

Glassing her glorious image ; as of old, 

When first she stole upon Endymion's rest, 

And his young dreams with heavenly beauty blest. 

And thou, "stern ruler of the inverted year," 
Cold, cheerless Winter, hath thy wild career 
No sweet, peculiar pleasures for the heart, 
That can ideal worth to rudest forms impart ? 
When, through thy long, dark nights, cold sleet and 

rain 
Patter and plash against the frosty pane. 
Warm curtained from the storm, I love to lie, 
Wakeful, and listening to the lullaby 
Of fitful winds, that as they rise and fall. 
Send hollow murmurs through the echoing halL 

Oft, by the blazing hearth at eventide, 
I love to see the fitful shadows glide. 
In flickering motion, o'er the illumined wall, 
Till slumber's honey-dew my senses thrall : 
Then, while in dreamy consciousness, I lie 
'Twixt sleep and waking, fairy fantasy 
Culls, from the golden past, a treasured store, 
And weaves a dream so sweet, hope could not ask for 
more. 



106 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

In the cold splendor of a frosty night, 
When«blazing stars burn with intenser light 
Through the blue vault of heaven ; vv^hen the keen air 
Sculptures in bolder lines the uplands bare ; 
When sleeps the shrouded earth, in solemn trance, 
Beneath the wan moon's melancholy glance ; 
I love to mark earth's sister planets rise. 
And in pale beauty tread the midnight skies ; 
Where, like lone pilgrims, constant as the night, 
They fill their dark urns from the fount of light. 

I love the Borealis flames that fly, 
Fitful and wild, athwart the northern sky ; 
The storied constellations, like a page 
Fraught with the wonders of a former age, 
Where monsters grim, gorgons, and hydras, rise, 
And " gods and heroes blaze along the skies." 

Thus Nature's music, various as the hour, 
Solemn or sweet, hath ever mystic power 
Still to preserve the unperverted heart 
Awake to love and beauty ; to impart 
Treasures of thought and feeling, pure and deep. 
That aid the doubting soul its heavenward course to 
keep. 



107 



EVENING ON THE BANKS OF THE 
MOOSHAUSSUCK. 



" Now to the sessions of sweet, silent thought, 
I summon up remembrance of things past." 

Shakespeare's Sonnets. 



Again September's golden day, 

Serenely still, intensely bright, 
Fades on the umbered hills away, 

And melts into the coming night. 
Again Mooshaussuck's silver tide 
Reflects each green herb on its side, 
Each tasselled wreath and tangling vine, 
Whose tendrils o'er its margin twine. 



108 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

And standing on its velvet shore. 

Where yesternight, with thee, I stood, 
I trace its devious course once more, 

Far winding on, through vale and wood ; 
Now glimmering through yon golden mist. 
By the last, glinting sunbeams kissed, 
Now lost, where lengthening shadows fall 
From hazel copse and moss-fringed wall. 



Near where yon rocks the stream inurn, 

The lonely gentian blossoms still ; 
Still wave the star-flower and the fern 

O'er the soft outline of the hill ; 
While, far aloft, where pine trees throw 
Their shade athwart the sunset glow, 
Thin vapors cloud the illumined air 
And parting daylight lingers there. 



But ah, no longer thou art near, 
This varied loveliness to see ; 

And I, though fondly lingering here, 
To-night, can only think on thee ; 



EVENING ON THE MOOSHAUSSUCK. 109 

The flowers thy gentle hand carressed, 
Still lie unwithered on my breast ; 
And still thy footsteps print the shore, 
Where thou and I may rove no more. 



Acrain I hear the murmurinor fall 

Of water from some distant dell, 
The beetle's hum, the cricket's call, 
And, far away, that evening bell ,• 
Again, again, those sounds I hear ; 
But oh, how desolate and drear 
They seem to-night ; iiow like a knell 
The music of that evening bell. 



Again the new moon in the west. 
Scarce seen upon yon golden sky, 

Hangs o'er the mountain's purple crest 
With one, pale planet trembling nigh ; 

And beautiful her pearly light 

As when we blessed its beams last night ; 

But thou art on the far blue sea, 

And I can only think on thee. 



no 



THE GARDEN SEPULCHRE. 



WRITTEN FOR THE CONSECRATION OF THE CEMETERY 
AT SWAN POINT. 



In the faith of Him who saw 
The eternal morning rise, ' 

Through the open gates of pearl, 
On the hills of Paradise; 



Looking to the promised land. 
Saw the verdant palms, that wave 

In the calm and lustrous air, 
Through the shadows of the grave 



THE GARDEN SEPULCHRE. Ill 

In His name, whose deathless love 

With a glory all divine, 
Filled the garden-sepulchre, 

Far away in Palestine ; 



We would consecrate a place 
Where our loved ones may repose, 

When the storms of life are past, 
And the weary eyelids close ; — 



Fairer than a festal hall 

Wreath the chambers of their rest ;- 
Sacred to the tears that fall 

O'er the slumbers of the blest : — 



Sacred to the hopes that rise 

Heavenward from this vale of tears, 
Soaring, with unwearied wing, 

Through the illimitable years. 



113 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Each sweet nursling of the spring 
Here shall weep its fresh' ning dews, 

Here its fragile censer swing, 
And all its fragrant soul diffuse. 



The lily, in her white symar. 
Fondly o'er the turf shall wave, 

Asphodels and violets star 

All the green-sward of the grave. 



Here the pale anemone 

In the April breeze shall nod, 

And the may-flower weave her blooms. 
Through and through the velvet sod. 



Bending by the storied urn, 
Purple eglantine shall blow. 

Till the pallid marble takes, 
From her cheek, a tender glow. 



THE GARDEN SEPULCHRE. 113 

Where the folding branches close 

In a verdant coronal, 
Through their dim and dreaming boughs, 

Faintly shall the sun-beams fall. 



Memories, mournful, yet how sweet! 

Here shall weave their mystic spell; 
Angels tread, with silent feet, 

Paths where love and sorrow dwell. 



No rude sound of earth shall break 
The dim quiet, evermore ; 

But the winds and waves shall chaunt 
A requiem on the lonely shore. 



Flitting through the laurel's gloom, 
The humming-bird shall wander by, 

Winnowing the floral bloom, 
From cups of wreathed ivory. 



114 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

The bee shall wind his fairy horn, 
Faintly murmuring on the ear ; 

Sounds that seem of silence born, 
Soothe the soul of sadness here ; 



Many a low and mystic word, 
From the realm of shadows sent, 

In the busy throng unheard, 
Make the silence eloquent : 



Words of sweetest promise, spoken 
Only where the dirge is sung; 

Where the golden bowl is broken, 
And the silver chord unstrung. 



Faith shall, with uplifted eye. 
All the solitude illume; 

Hope and Memory shall sit, 
Shining seraphs, by the tomb. 



115 



OUR ISLAND OF DREAMS. 



** By the foam 
Of perilous seas, in faeiy lands forlorn." 

Keats. 



Tell him I lingered alone on the shore, 

Where we parted, in sorrow, to meet never more ; 

The night wind blew cold on my desolate heart, 

But colder those wild words of doom "-Ye must part!" 



O'er the dark, heaving waters, I sent forth a cry ; 
Save the wail of those waters there came no reply. 
I longed, like a bird, o'er the billows to flee, 
From our lone, island home and the moan of the sea: 



J 16 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Away — far away — from the wild ocean shore, 

"Where the waves ever murmur, " No more, never 

more ;" 
Where I wake, in tlie wild noon of midnight, to hear 
That lone song of the surges, so mournful and drear. 



Yet tell him our own, fairy isle of the sea, 
Is still dear, in its desolate beauty, to me ; 
Though a hollow wind sighs through its echoing bow- 
ers, 
Thouo-h I wander alone through its Eden of flowers ; 



Though the wing of the tempest o'ershadows the wold 
Where the asphodel meadows once blossomed in gold; 
Though the silence and chill of the sepulchre sleep 
On its dream-haunted woodlands that border the deep. 



And say, though the night wind blew cold, and the 

gloom 
Of our parting was drear as the night of the tomb, 
I know, when all shadows are swept from the main, 
Our own star o'er the waters shall tremble asain. 



OUR ISLAND OF DREAMS. 117 

When the clouds that now veil from us heaven's fair 

light, 
Their soft, silver lining turn forth on the night; 
When time shall the vapors of falsehood dispel, 
He shall know if I loved him ; but never how well 



Though we meet not again in our island of flowers, — 
Though the hollow winds sigh through its desolate bow- 
ers, 
Every bud that the wing of the tempest has riven, 
Shall blossom again in the islands of Heaven. 



118 



IN APRIL'S DIM AND SHOWERY NIGHTS. 



In April's dim and showery nights, 
When music melts along the air, 

And Memory wakens at the kiss 

Of wandering perfumes, faint and rare ; 



Sweet, spring-time perfumes, su<^ as won 
Proserpina from realms of gloom, 

To bathe her bright locks in the sun, 
Or bind them with the pansy's bloom ; 



When light winds rift the fragrant bowers 
Where orchards shed their floral wreath , 

Strewing the turf with starry flowers. 
And dropping pearls at every breath ; 



APRIL NIGHTS. 119 

When, all night long, the boughs are stirred 
With fitful warblings from the nest ; 

And the heart flutters, like a bird. 
With its sweet, passionless, unrest^ 



Oh ! then, beloved, I think on thee, 
And on that life, so strangely fair, 

Ere yet one cloud of memory 

Had gathered in hope's golden air : 



I think on thee and thy lone grave 
On the green hill-side, far away; 

I see the wilding flowers that wave 
Around thee, as the night winds sway 



And still, though only clouds remain 
On life's horizon, cold and drear ; 

The dream of youth returns again 
With the sweet promise of the year. 



120 



THE ENCHANTED CASTLE 



TEOM "the sleeping BEAUTY. 



All slept : the armorial bannerals 
Drooped idly from the castle walls, 

Nor wooed the morning's beam : 
The bell, within the moiddering tower, 
No longer tolled the passing hour ; 

The castle was a dream. . 



A pathless forest, wild and wide, 
Engirt the wall on every side. 

And stretched for many a mile : 
Eternal silence brooded there, 
Eternal shadows filled the air. 

And veiled the slumbering pile. 



THE ENCHANTED CASTLE. 121 

So high the ancient cedars sprung, 
So far aloft their branches flung, 

So thick the covert grew, 
No foot its mazes could invade, 
No eye could pierce its depths of shade, 

Or see the welkin through. 



Yet oft, as, from some distant mound, 
The traveler cast his eyes around 

O'er wold and woodland grey ; 
He saw, athwart the glimmering light 
Of moonbeams, on a misty night, 

A castle, far away. 



A hundred winters sapped the towers ; 
A hundred summers rained their flowers 

Upon the castle lawn : 
.Through day and night, through night and day. 
In charmed rest, the lady lay. 

Unmindful of the dawn. 



122 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

A hundred Norland winters passed ; 
A hundred golden summers cast 

Their glory on the shore ; 
And still the guardant angels kept 
The place all holy, where she slept, 

And blessed her ever more. 



123 



THE ROUT OF THE CHILDREN 



FROM THE FREXCH OP VICTOR HUGO. 



Little darlings, return to my desolate room ! 
Since I drove you away, it is mantled in gloom ; — 
Since I drove you away, with rude, menacing words ; — 
What harm had you done me, you dear little birds ? 
Little rosy-lipped bandits, '-what mischief had hatched? 
What gem from my casket of minerals snatched? — 
What old, gothic missal, enriched by your hands, 
With fantastic designs, you mischievous brigands ? 
Ah, none : you but stopped in my study a minute, 
To plunder my desk of some papers within it — 



124 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Some manuscript verses devoted to Fame ; 
Which you threw in the fire, and fanned to a flame, ; 
On the tissue of tinder all blackened and charred, 
With wandering fire-sparks brilliantly starred. 
To see, as you said, how the folks, one by one. 
Go out of the church when the meeting is done. 
Then, muttering vengeance, in menacing tone, 
I shouted, " Begone imps, and leave me alone ! 
You have burnt up my verses, entitled ' To Fame :* 
I shall die, and the world never hear of my name." 



Great loss then, indeed ! and great cause for dismay, — 
A strophe, ill-born in the noise of your play! 
Great Bobadil verses that puflfed as they went, 
And swaggered their impotent meanings to vent ; 
And long alexandrines, entangling their feet 
Like a pack of rude school-boys, let loose in the street. 
You did but redeem from a fate more obscure. 
The rhyme that some newspaper waited to lure 
To that cavernous cell, called the poet's own nook, 
Where no reader of newspapers pauses to look. 
For this have I raved ! Ah, I blush to recall 
How I sat, with my chair leaning back to the wall, 



THE ROUT OF THE CHILDREN. 125 

Still muttering vengeance, in menacing tone, 

And repeating " Begone imps, and leave me alone ! " 



Alone ! fine result, and great triumph ! alone ! 
Forgotten — forlorn, like a toad in a stone ! 
And here have you left me — my eye on the door, 
Grave, haughty, severe, — but you mind me no more ; 
For without you have found all you sought to obtain — • 
All the freedom, that here, you had sighed for in vain — 
The fresh air, the streamlet that runs through the grass, 
Where you fling in sweet blossoms and leaves as you 

pass ; 
The breezes, the flowers, the perfumes divine — 
Ah, this poem of God is far better than mine ! 
You may pluck out the leaves of his book without fear, 
Nor tremble the voice of the tyrant to hear : — 
His roses and pinks you may rifle all day, 
Nor regret the dull room whence I drove you away. 
As for me, all the joy of my day has departed ; 
I sit in my chair — half asleep, heavy hearted, 
While old Doctor Ennui, a Londoner, born 
Of fogs and the Thames on a December morn, 



126 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Who waited to enter 'till you had gone out ; 
Has moped in my study all day in a pout, 
And, usurping your corner, sits grouty and grim, 
He gaping at me, and I gaping at him. 

The pages I turned with such zeal to explore, 
The books and the manuscripts please me no more : 
I miss, o'er my shoulder, the sweet, peering face, 
I miss the small finger to point out the place, 
The nudge of the elbow, the sly little kiss, 
The brow full of candor, that always said "yes," 
The great eyes of wonder, the frolicksome screams, 
The sweet humming voices that lapt me in dreams. 

Return little birds ! — since I drove you away 
I have lost all the sunshine and bloom of my day. 

Take my tea-cups, enameled with butterflies wings — 
All my Dresden and Sevres and beautiful things : — 
You may twirl the round globe, the big map may un- 
roll, 
And sketch out new countries with crayon and coal. 
My pictures and statues are waiting for you — 
My vases of jasper and bright or-molu : 



THE ROUT OF THE CHILDREN. 127 

Of my corals and shells you may gather your fill, 
And my malachite tables may mount at your will. 
Your whooping and hiding — to all I agree f 
Your trooping and training are music to me. 
Like heroes, returned from some great battle ground, 
You may drag my old arm-chair in triumph around : 
My great, painted Bible may turn o'er and o'er — 
That book you ne'er touched but with terror before — 
Where you see on the page, in fine colors displayed, 
Dieu le pere, in an emperor's habit arrayed ! 

Then return, little doves ! to my desolate room; 
Since I drove you away, it is mantled in gloom ; — 
Oh return ! you may ransack, and rifle, and reign, 
So you will but forgive me, and love me again. 



128 



SUMMER'S CALL TO THE LITTLE 
ORPHAN. 



" Viens j' ai dcs fruits d' or, j' ai dcs roses; 
J' en remplirai tes pctits bras." 

Victor Hugo. 



The summer skies are darkly blue, 
The days are still and bright, 

And Evening trails her robes of gold 
Through the dim halls of Night. 



Then, when the little orphan wakes, 
A low voice whispers " Come, 

And all day wander at thy will 
Beneath my azure dome. 



summer's call to the little orphan. 129 

Beneath my vaulted, azure dome, 

Through all my flowery lands, 
No higher than the lowly thatch 

The royal palace stands. 



I'll fill thy little, longing arms 
With fruits and wilding flowers ; 

I'll tell thee tales of fairy-land 
In the long twilight hours." 



The orphan hears that wooing voice, 
Awhile he softly broods, — 

Then hastens down the sunny slopes, 
Into the twilight woods. 



The waving branches murmur 

Strange secrets in his ear. 
But the nodding flowers welcome him, 

And whisper '* Never fear." 

10 



130 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

He sees the squirrel peeping 
From the coverts cool and dim, 

And the water-lilies sleeping 
Along the fountain's brim. 



He hears the wild bee humming 
In the roses by the rill ; 

He nestles in the hollow tree, 
He clambers up the hill. 



He weaves a little basket 
From the willow as he goes, 

And he heaps it up with blackberries, 
And blueberries, and sloes. 



The brook stays him, at the crossing, 
In its waters cool and sweet, 

And the pebbles leap around him, 
And frolic at his feet. 



Half fearfully, half joyfully, 

He treads the forest dim, 
Till he hears the woodbirds chaunting 

Their holy, sylvan hymn. 



Then, in the cool of even-tide. 
The Father's voice he hears, 

As men heard it in the Eden, 
Of Earth's paradisal years. 



The red-bird furls her shining wing, 
The squirrel seeks his lair ; 

The flovi^ers, folding up their leaves, 
Incline their heads in prayer. 



The orphan feels a brooding calm 
O'er all his senses creep ; 

And, by the little ground-bird's nest, 
He lays him down to sleep. 



132 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

The Moon comes gliding through the trees, 

And softly stoops to spread 
Her dainty silver kirtle 

Upon his grassy bed. 



The drowsy Night-wind, murmuring 
Its quaint old tunes the while ; 

Till Morning wakes him with a song, 
And greets him with a smile. 



133 



A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 



In the soft gloom of Summer's balmy eve. 
When from the lingering glances of the Sun 
The sad Earth turns away her blushing cheek, 
Mantling its glow in twilight's shadowy veil ; 
Oft mid the falling dews 1 love to stray 
Onward and onward, through the pleasant field; 
Far up the lilied borders of the stream, 
To this green, silent hollow of the hills, 
Endeated by thronging memories of the past. 



134 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Oft have I lingered on this rustic bridge, 
To view the limpid waters winding on 
Under dim-vaulted woods, whose woven boughs 
Of beech and maple and broad sycamore 
Throw their soft, moving shadows o'er the wave ; 
While blossomed vines, dropped to the water's brirn^ 
Hang idly swaying in the summer wind. 

The birds that wander through the twilight heaven 
Are mirrored far beneath me ; and young leaves 
That tremble on the birch-tree's silver boughs, 
In the cool wave reflected, gleam below. 
Like twinkling stars athwart the verdant gloom. 

A sound of rippling waters rises sweet 
Amid the silence ; and the western breeze, 
Sighing through sedges and low meadow-blooms, 
Comes wafting gentle thoughts from Memory's land. 
And wakes the long hushed music of the heart. 

Oft dewy Spring hath brimmed the brook with show- 
ers; 
Oft hath the long, bright Summer fringed its banks 
With breathing blossoms ; and the Autumn sun 
Shed mellow hues o'er all its wooded shores. 



A HOLLOW OF THE HILLS. 135 

Since first I trod these paths, in youth's sweet prime, 
With loved ones whom time's desolating wave 
Hath wafted now for ever from my side. 

Long years have passed : and on its flowery brink, 
Bereft and sorrow-taught, alone I stand, 
Listening the hollow music of the wind. 
Alone — alone : the stars are far away, 
And wild clouds wander o'er the face of heaven ; 
But still the green earth wears her summer crown 
And whispers hope through all her breathing flowers. 

Not all in vain the vision of our youth ; 
The apocalypse of beauty and of love ; 
The stag-like heart of hope. Life's mystic dream 
The soul shall yet interpret ; to our prayer 
The Isis veil be lifted. Though we pine 
E'en 'mid the ungathered roses of our youth, 
Pierced with strange pangs and longings infinite, 
As if earth's fairest flowers served but to wake 
Sad, haunting memories of our Eden home ; 
Not all in vain. Meantime, in patient trust, 
Rest we on Nature's bosom ; from her eye, 
Serene and still, drinking in faith and love ; 



136 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

To her calm pulse attempering the heart 

That throbs too wildly for ideal bliss. 

Oh, gentle Mother, heal me : for I faint 

Upon life's arid path-way ; or apart, 

On lonely mountain heights, oft hear a voice 

Tempting my agony with perilous thoughts 

Of death's calm, dreamless slumber ; and my feet 

On the dark mountains stumble : near thy heart 

Close nestling, let me lie ; and let thy breath, 

Fragrant and cool, fall on my fever'd cheek, 

As in those unworn ages ere pale thought 

Forestalled life's patient harvest. Give me strength 

To follow, wheresoe'er o'er the world's waste 

The cloudy pillar moveth ; till at last 

It guide to pleasant vales and pastures green 

By the still waters of eternal life. 



137 



A VISION OF PARADISE. 

SUGGESTED BY DUBUFE'S PICTURES OF THE TEMPTATION 
AND EXPULSION. 



Methought this dim, old world had passed away, 

With all its load of agony and crime ; 

And brightly o'er me dawned that glorious day 

When nature woke in its refulgent prime ; 

So broad the splendor, so intensely fair. 

The unaccustomed sense pined in that purer air. 



Two peerless forms of loveliness and light, 
"In native honor robed," before me shone, 
Dazzling and blinding my bewildered sight 
With rays reflected from Jehovah's throne ; 
While, like bright stars in their supernal sphere, 
Above all pain they seemed, all sorrow, hope or fear. 



138 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Beauty, and purity, and heavenly grace 
Floated around them like an atmosphere ; 
While love's young star, that mocks our fallen race 
With meteor fires malign, soft gleaming there, 
In their horizon dawned with cloudless ray, 
Without one shade or stain that dimmed its after day. 



** A change came o'er the spirit of my dream;" 
The light, the loveliness, the bloom had fled. 
I trembled at the lightning's lurid gleam, 
And the loud thunder pealing o'er my head. — 
The dark waves rolled around ; the lion's roar 
Blent with the sounding surge, and rocked the storm- 
beat shore. 



And where were they, the beautiful, the pure ? 
Alas ! now pure and beautiful no more ; 
Scathed with the curse of knowledge ; to endure^ 
The sole, stern lesson of their withering lore ; 
Driven from their paradisal dream away, 
Through pathless realms of death, to seek the gates of 
day. 



A VISION OF PARADISE. 139 

Is there no mercy in the heavens above ? 
No star to lig^ht the exiles to their doom ? — 
There is ! — there is ! — the deathless lamp of love, 
Shedding its soft, pale splendor through the gloom ; 
Shorn of its earlier rays — yet oh, how fair 
That holy flame that burns through darkness and 
despair. 



Look on those dewy orbs like violets dim ! 
No fear of danger, death, or pain's keen throe 
Glooms their pure heaven of love ; alone for him 
Those dark forebodings of unfathomed woe ; 
On him she turns her soft, appealing eye. 
Resigned for him to live, with him resolved to die : 



For him she dared love's Eden to forego, 
And the fond yearnings of her heart to quell, 
That he the secret of the world might know. 
And grasp the fruit of knowledge ere it fell. 
For him she sought the lore of gods, to sate 
The pride of soul that left her own heart desolate. 



140 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

The disenchanted scene is dark with woe ; 

God's image seared with sin's corroding brand ; 

O'er all remorse and grief their shadows throw, 

And leaguered angels guard the holy land : 

The gate of dreams is passed ; through pain and toil 

Must the fair soul, her wings, from earthly stain assoil. 



And this the riddle of our destiny ; 

The lore of lands whence life's deep waters welled. 

Still the cold shadow of the poison tree 

Darkens our earth as in the days of eld : • 

With lingering pain, the soul evolves its power ; 

And, on a mortal stem, unfolds the immortal flower. 



141 



THE PAST. 



" So fern, und doch so nah." 

Goethe. 



Thick darkness broodeth o'er the world : 

The raven pinions of the Night, 
Close on her silent bosom furled, 

Reflect no gleam of orient light. 
E'en the wild Norland fires that mocked 

The faint bloom of the eastern sky, 
Now leave me, in close darkness locked. 

To night's weird realm of phantasy. 



142 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Borne from pale shadow-lands remote, 

A morphean music, wildly sweet, 
Seems, on the starless gloom, to float, 

Like the white-pinioned Paraclete. 
Softly into my dream it flows, 

Then faints into the silence drear ; 
While from the hollow dark outgrows 

The phantom Past, pale gliding near. 



The visioned Past ; so strangely fair ! 

So veiled in shadowy, soft regrets. 
So steeped in sadness, like the air 

That lingers when the day-star sets ! 
Ah ! could I fold it to my heart, 

On its cold lip my kisses press. 
This waste of aching life impart, 

To win it back from nothingness 1 



I loathe the purple light of day, 

And shun the morning's golden star, 

Beside that shadowy form to stray, 
For ever near, yet oh how far ! 



THE PAST. 143 

Thin as a cloud of summer even, 

All beauty from my gaze it bars ; 
Shuts out the silver cope of heaven, 

And glooms athwart the dying stars. 



Cold, sad, and spectral, by my side, 

It breathes of love's ethereal bloom — 
Of bridal memories, long afRed 

To the dread silence of the tomb : 
Sweet, cloistered memories, that the heart 

Shuts close within its chalice cold ; 
Faint perfumes, that no more dispart 

From the bruised lily's floral fold. 



*' My soul is weary of her life ;" 

My heart sinks with a slow despair ; 
The solemn, star-lit hours are rife 

With phantasy ; the noontide glare, 
And the cool morning, fancy free. 

Are false with shadows ; for the day 
Brings no blithe sense of verity, 

Nor wins from twilight thoughts away. 



144 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Oh, bathe me in the Lethean stream, 
And feed me on the lotus flowers ; 

Shut out this false, bewildering dream, 
This memory of departed hours ! 

Sweet haunting dream ! so strangely fair- 
So veiled in shadowy, soft regrets — 

So steeped in sadness, like the air 
That lingers when the day-star sets ! 



The Future can no charm confer, 

My heart's deep solitudes to break ; 
No angel's foot again shall stir 

The waters of that silent lake. 
I wander in pale dreams away. 

And shun the morning's golden star, 
To follow still that failing ray. 

For ever near, yet oh how far ! 



145 



A DAY OF THE INDIAN SUMMER 



" Yet one more smile, departing distant sun. 
Ere o'er the frozen earth the loud winds run, 
And snows are sifted o'er the meadows bare." 

Bryant. 



A day of golden beauty ! — Througli the night 
The hoar-frost gathered, o'er each leaf and spray 
Weaving its filmy network ; thin and bright, 
And shimmeiing like silver in the ray 
Of the soft, sunny morning ; turf and tree 
Pranct in its delicate embroidery, 
And every withered stump and mossy stone, 
With gems encrusted and with seed-pearl sown ; 
11 



146 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

While in the hedge the frosted berries glow, 
The scarlet holly and the purple sloe, 
And all is gorgeous, fairy-like and frail 
As the famed gardens of the Arabian tale. 

How soft and still the autumnal landscape lies. 
Calmly outspread beneath the smiling skies ; 
As if the earth, in prodigal array 
Of gems and broidered robes, kept holiday ; 
Her harvest yielded and her work all done, 
Basking in beauty 'neath the Autumn sun! 

Yet once more, through the soft and balmy day, 

Up the brown hill-side, by the woodland way, 

Far let us rove ; through dreamy solitudes 

AVhere ''Autumn's smile beams through the yellow 

woods ;" 
Fondly retracing each sweet, summer haunt 
And sylvan pathway ; where the sunbeams slant 
Through yonder copse, kindling the yellow stars 
Of the witch-hazel with their golden bars ; 
Or, lingering down this dim and shadowy lane, 
Where still the damp sod wears an emerald stain. 



A DAY OF THE INDIAN SUMMER. 147 

Though ripe brown nuts hang clustering in the hedge 

And the rude barberry, o'er yon rocky ledge, 

Droops with its pendant corals. When the showers 

Of April clothed this winding path with flowers. 

Here oft we sought the violet, as it lay 

Buried in beds of moss and lichens grey ; 

And still the aster greets us, as we pass. 

With her faint smile ; among the withered gra^s 

Beside the way, lingering as loth of heart, 

Like me, from these sweet solitudes to part. 



Now seek we the dank borders of the stream, 

Where the tall fern-tufts shed a tawny gleam 

Over the water from their saffron plumes, 

And, clustering near, the modest gentian blooms 

Lonely around ; hallowed by sweetest song. 

The last and loveliest of the floral throng. 

Yet here we may not linger, for behold 

Where the stream widens, like a sea of gold 

Outspreading far before us ; all around 

Steep, wooded heights and sloping uplands bound 

The sheltered scene ; along the distant shore 

Through colored woods the glinting sunbeams pour, 



148 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Touchinsr their foliacre with a thousand shades 
And hues of beauty, as the red light fades 
Beneath the shadow of a fleecy shroud, 
Or, through the rifted silver of the cloud. 
Pours down a brighter gleam. Gray willows lave 
Their pendant branches in the crystal wave. 
And slender birch-trees o'er its banks incline, 
Whose tall, slight stems across the water shine 
Like shafts of silver ; — there the tawny elm, — 
The fairest subject of the sylvan realm, — 
The tufted pine-tree and the cedar dark. 
And the young chestnut, its smooth, polished bark 
Gleaming like porphyry in the yellow light, 
The dark brown oak and the rich maple, dight 
In robes of scarlet ; all are standing there 
So still, so calm, in the soft, misty air, 
That not a leaf is stirring — not a sound 
Startles the deep repose that broods around ; 
Save when the robin's melancholy song 
Is heard amid the coppice, and along 
The sunny side of yonder moss-grown wall 
That skirts our path, the cricket's chirping call. 



A DAY OF THE INDIAN SUMMER. 149 

Or, the fond murmur of the drowsy bee 

O'er some lone flowret on the sunny lea : 

And, heard at intervals, a pattering sound 

Of ripened acorns rustling to the ground 

Through the crisp, withered leaves. — How lonely all, 

How calmly beautiful ! Long shadows fall 

More darkly o'er the wave as day declines, 

Yet from the west a deeper glory shines ; 

While every crested hill and rocky height 

Each moment varies in the kindling light 

To some new form of beauty ; changing through 

All shades and colors of the rainbow's hue, 

"The last still loveliest," till the gorgeous day 

Melts in a flood of golden light away ; 

And all is o'er. Before to-morrow's sun 

Cold winds may rise and shrouding shadows dun 

Obscure the scene ; yet shall these fading hues 

And fleeting forms their loveliness transfuse 

Into the mind — and memory shall burn 

The painting in on her enamelled urn 

In undecaying colors. When the blast 

Hurtles around and snows are gathering fast, 



J 50 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

When musing sadly by the twilight hearth, 

Or lonely wandering through life's crowded path. 

Its quiet beauty, rising through the gloom, 

Shall soothe the languid spirits and illume 

The drooping fancy — winning back the soul 

To cheerful thoughts through nature's sweet control. 



151 



SHE BLOOMS NO MORE 



" Oh primavera, gioventu dell' anno, 

Bella madre di flori, 

Tu torni ben, ma teco 

Xon tornani i sereni 

E fortunati di delle mi gioge." 

GUARIXI. 



I dread to see the summer sun 
Come glowing up the sky, 

And early pansies, one by one, 
Opening the violet eye. 



Again the fair azalia bows 
Beneath her snowy crest ; 

In yonder hedge the hawthorn blows. 
The robin builds her nest ; 



152 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

The tulips lift their proud tiars, 
The lilac waves her plumes ; 

And, peeping through my lattice-bars, 
The rose-acacia blooms. 



But she can bloom on earth no more, 
Whose early doom I mourn ; 

Nor Spring nor Summer can restore 
Our flower, untimely shorn. 



She was our morning glory, 
Our primrose, pure and pale, 

Our little mountain daisy. 
Our lily of the vale. 



Now dim as folded violets, 

Her eyes of dewy light ; 
And her rosy lips have mournfully 

Breathed out their last good-night. 



SHE BLOOMS NO MORE. 153 

'Tis therefore that I dread to see 

The glowing Summer sun ; 
And the balmy blossoms on the tree, 

Unfolding one by one. 



154 



ON A MAGDALEN BY CARLO DOLCE. 



Though every line of that sweet, thoughtful face 

Seems touched by sorrow to a softer grace ; 

Though o'er thy cheek's young bloom a blight hath 

passed, 
And dimmed its pensive beauty — from thine eye 
With the soft gloom of gathering tears o'ercast, 
Doth love shine forth, o'er all, triumphantly : 
A light which shame nor sorrow could impair, 
Unquenched, undimraed, through years of lone despair. 

Oh love, immortal love ! not all in vain 

The young heart wastes beneath life's weary chain, 

Filled with thy bright ideal — whose excess 

Of beauty mocks our utter loneliness ; 

The weary bark, long tossing on the shore, 

Shall find its haven when the storm is o'er ; 

The wandering bee its hive, the bird its nest, 

And the lone heart of love in heaven its home of rest. 



155 



TO 



Thine is the hope that knows no fear, 

The patient heart and true ; 
Whose wrongs but make the right more dear. 

Whose love no loss may rue. 



Sometimes a soft and sad surprise — 
A pitying angel, passion free, 

Looks earthward, from thy tender eyes, 
Upon our frail humanity. 



Thy calm brow speaks a nature true, 
A marble constancy of soul, 

A heart that can its dreams subdue 
To wisdom's passionless control. 



156 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Thine eye hath the serenity 
By Raphael to the virgin given, 

And from its blue benignity 

Looks out the holy light of heaven. 



157 



MORNING AFTER A STORM 



The wan and melancholy stars 
Are fading with the fading gloom, 

And, through the orient's cloudy bars, 
I see the rose of morning bloom. 



All flushed, and fairer for the storm, 
It opens on our vernal skies, 

Divinely beautiful and warm, 
As on the hills of Paradise. 



And on its breast a shining spark, 
Like a bright drop of morning dew, 

Lies glittering on the royy dark. 

Then melts and mingles with the blue. 



158 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Sweet morning star ! thy silver beams, 
Foretell a fairer life to come ; 

Arouse the sleeper from his dreams 
And call the wandering spirit home. 



My soul, ascending like a lark. 
Would follow on thine airy flight ; 

And like thy little diamond spark. 
Dissolve into the realms of light. 



159 



TO 



Eva, thy beauty comes to me 
To solace and to save ; 
A marvel and a mystery, 
A beacon o'er the wave, 
A star above the jasper sea, 
A hope beyond the grave. 



Oft, when thy harp-tones, wild and sweet, 
The waves of passion move, 
Methinks pale Sappho's songs I hear 
Murmuring of Phaon's love — 
Pale Sappho's passion songs I hear 
Lamenting her lost love : 



160 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

But in those tender, thoughtful eyes, 

That look so far away, 

A pleading Pysche bids me rise 

To realms of purer day — 

A Psyche soaring to the skies, — 

To realms of perfect day. 



161 



FLOR ALIE. 



All the star-flowers on the hill 
Nod their sweet heads wearily ; 

Through the sad September day, 
To my lonely heart they say, 
Floral ie is far away. 



All the little birds that sang 
In the copse so cheerily, 

Fluttering from spray to spray, 
Seem in mournful notes to say, 
Floralie is far away — far away. 



162 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

All the morning stars that look 

Through the dawn so drearily- 
Turning from the joyless day — 
By their sadness seem to say, 
Floralie is far away — 
Far away — rfar, far away. 



163 



STANZAS WITH A BRIDAL RING 



The young moon hides her virgin heart 

Within a ring of gold ; 
So doth this little cycle all 

My bosom's love enfold, 
And tell the tale, that from my lips, 

Seems ever half untold ; 
Like the rich legend of the East, 

That weaves and interweaves 
Its linked sweetness, or the rose 

That hath a hundred leaves. 



1(14 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

This little fairy talisman 

Shall love's serene elysium span ; 
No hope shall pass its mystic round. 

And all within be holy ground : 
And here, as in the elfin ring 

Where fairies dance by night, 
The green oases of the heart 

Shall keep their verdure bright. 
And hope, within this magic round. 

Still blossom in delight. 



iG5 



ON FANNIE'S CHARM LAMP 



Within this little fairy urn 

No earthly napthas blaze and burn ; 
But spells of necromantic power 

Lurk in the little silver flower : 
It is the very lamp, I ween, 
The wondrous lamp of Aladeen. 



And he who did the gift impart 
To the fair regent of his heart, 

Through life his folly shall deplore 
Slave of the lamp forever more ; 

Slave to the lady and the queen 

Who holds the lamp of Aladeen. 



166 



SONG 



I bade thee stay. Too well I know 
The fault was mine — mine only : 

I dared not think upon the past 
All desolate and lonely. 



I feared in memory's silent air 
Too sadly to regret thee — 

Feared in the night of my despair 
I could not all forget thee. 



Yet go — ah go ! those pleading eyes — 
Those low, sweet tones, appealing 

From heart to heart — ah, dare I trust 
That passionate revealing. 



SONG. 167 

For ah, those dark and pleading eyes 

Evoke too keen a sorrow — 
A pang that will not pass away, 

With thy wild vows, to-morrow. 



A love immortal and divine 
Within my heart is waking : 

Its dream of anguish and despair 
It owns not but in breaking. 



168 



THE DRAMA. 



SrOKEN AT THE OPENING OP THE THEATRE IN rROYIDENCE, 
NOVEMBER 27, 1838. 



What new enchantment hovers in the air ? 

Soft music breathes and festal torches glare ; 

A roseate light illumes the storied wall, 

And youth and beauty throng the lofty hall. 

Lo, where the Drama, through the shades of night, 

Bursts in soft splendor on the ravished sight; 

Here lurks Thalia with bewildering glance, 

In the gay masque of Folly or Romance ; 

There proud Melpomene, in pall and plume, 

Trails her imperial purples through the gloom. 

Immortal sisters in Art's fairy train, 

Long lost, long mourned, resume your genial reign ! 



THE DRAMA. 169 

Can we forget when first in childhood's hour, 
Our footsteps sought your vision-haunted bower ? 
When trembling, wondering 'mid the enraptured throng, 
We quaffed the tide of eloquence and song ; 
While, stood revealed, the creatures of our dream, 
Bright, breathing, palpable! scarce could we deem 
That earth confessed such beauty ; — to abide 
With these were life — vain shadows all beside. 
O cold the hearts that from such 'witching sway 
Could turn unmoved and passionless away. 



Yet, though less genial prove our sordid age 
To Art's bright reign than when the Grecian stage 
Enthroned the Drama's triumph and her pride, 
To sacred rights and royal deeds allied ; — 
When priests and scholars sought her scenic halls 
And conquering heroes gathered to her walls, 
While the vast area of her temples saw 
Tumultuous Athens hushed in breathless awe ; 
Still do her structures rise, her altars blaze 
Where late the savage tracked the pathless maze ; 
By many a stormy river of the West, 
By many a lake that stays its mountain guest. 



170 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



Far through the wild her festal notes are borne 
Ere fade the echoes of the huntsman's horn. 



Oft when the wint'ry storms shall hurtle round, 

Or silent snow-flakes print the frozen ground, 

When the cold rain comes rattling on the blast. 

And mantling clouds night's blazing host o'ercast. 

Here shall we sit, in this enchanted hall, 

Where breathing thoughts and burning words enthral, 

Regardless of the cold world's sordid strife, 

And all the hollow mimicries of life, 

Where vainer actors idler pageants play. 

And wear their masks in the broad eye of day. 



Here shall we see again, with martial stalk, 
*The buried majesty of Denmark' walk; 
Macbeth shall shudder at the ghost of crime. 
Nor spoil, for us, 'the pleasure of the time.' 
Here fair Hermione, long tranced to stone — 
Fixed like a statue on her marble throne — 
Descending from her pedestal, shall move 
And breathe and tremble at the voice of love. 



THE DRAMA. 171 

Here royal Katherine, love's sweet claim denied, 
Shall plead the rights of an imperial bride ; 
And with such haughty eloquence inspire, 
Our *drops of tears shall turn to sparks of fire.* 

Manhood shall here cast off earth's coiling care, 
And weary Age remember life was fair ; 
Entranced and spell-bound by her potent sway 
Who ' calls each slumbering passion into play' — 
Exulting, trembling, as her accents flow 
In varying strains of triumph or of woe — 
Now decked in smiles, and now her brow o'erfr aught 
With the pale cast of melancholy thought. 

Far through the twilight vistas of the past. 
Where gathering years their cloudy mantles cast, 
Oft turns her eagle eye, and, at its glance, 
The shadows vanish from that drear expanse — 
Lo, at her gaze, night melteth into day. 
And the dark mist of ages rolls away ! 
She hath ' called spirits from the vasty deep,' 
Roused kings and heroes from their dreamless sleep. 



172 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Restored the scenes of a chivalrous age 
Where knightly forms heroic conflicts wage ; — 
The victor's triumph on the ensanguined field, 
The plume, the pennon, and the bazoned shield ; 
Bade the dead lover's clay-cold bosom glow, 
And the slain warrior meet once more his foe ; 
And caused them, for a night, on earth to roam, 
Then pass like spectres to their silent home. 



And now she comes with all her shadowy train 
To hold her court within this gorgeous fane ; 
Here her bright banner fearlessly unfurls, 
Nor heeds the pointless shaft the bigot hurls. 
She comes in living beauty to restore 
The wondrous deeds of legendary lore, 
Or, in light vaudevilles and comic mimes. 
To paint ' the form and pressure of the times ;' 
With lofty themes to rouse the languid heart, 
Or stern reproof with subtle grace impart, — 
To wake the noble love of well-earned fame 
And teach the glory of a deathless name. 



THE DRAMA. 173 

She shows how heroes lived and martyrs died, 
In life dishonored and in death denied, 
Yet nerved the powers of death and hell to scorn 
When holy Honor sounds her bugle horn. 
Such themes new vigor to the heart supply, 
Flush every cheek and light up every eye. 

Y/hether in gorgeous drapery she is seen, 

Moving before us like an empire's queen — 

Or clothed in all the majesty of woe, 

Bids beauty's tears like molten diamonds glow — 

Or vv'reathed in smiles, with soft, seducing glance, 

Makes the warm life-blood through the pulses dance — 

Still, ever beautiful, she meets the sight. 

Taking all shapes to furnish new delight, 

Forever changing, yet forever true 

To one, fond aim — approving smiles from you. 

Long may those smiles our virgin temple grace, 

And SnAKsrEARE's spirit hallow all the place. 



174 



ROGER WILLIAMS 



WRITTEN FOR THE FIRST ANNUAL CELEBRATION OF TUB 
RHODE-ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY, JANUARY, 13, 1847. 



Now, while the echoing cannon's roar 
Rocks our far frontal towers, 

And bugle blast and trumpet's blare 
Float o'er the *' Land of Flowers ;" 



While our bold eagle spreads his wing 

No more in lofty pride, 
But sorrowing sinks, as if from Heaven 

The ensanguined field to hide j 



ROGER WILLIAMS. 175 

Turn we from war's bewildering blaze, 

And conquest's choral song, 
To the still voice of other days, 

Long heard, — forgotten long. 



Listen to his rich words, intoned 
To songs of lofty cheer, 

Who in the howling wilderness, 
Mid forests wild and drear ; 



Breathed not of exile nor of wrong, 
Through the long winter nights, 

"But uttered in exulting song, 
The soul's unchartered rights. 



Who sought the oracles of God 
In the heart's veiled shrine. 

Nor asked the monarch nor the priest, 
His sacred laws to sign. 



176 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

The brave, high heart that would not yield 

Its liberty of thought, 
Far o'er the melancholy main, 

Through bitter trials brought ; 



But, to a double exile doomed, 
By Faith's pure guidance led — 

Through the dark labyrinth of life, 
Held fast her golden thread. 



Listen! The music of his dream 
Perchance may linger still 

In the old familiar places 
Beneath the emerald hill. 



The wave-worn rock still breasts the storm 

On Seekonk's lonely side, 
Where the dusky natives hailed the bark 

That bore their gentle guide. 



ROGER WILLIAMS. 177 

The Spring that gusl^ed amid the wild 

In music on his ear, 
Still pours its waters, undefiled, 

The fainting heart to cheer. 



And the fair cove, that slept so calm 
Beneath o'ershadowing hills, 

And bore the exile's evening psalm 
Far up its flowery rills — 



The wave that parted to receive 
The pilgrim's light canoe, 

As if an angel's balmy wing 
Had stirred its waters blue — 



What though the fire-winged courser's breath 

Has swept its cooling tide, 
And fast before its withering blast, 

The rushing wave has dried, 
13 



178 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Still, narrowed to our crowded mart- 
A fair enchanted mere^ — 

In the proud city's throbbing heart 
It sleeps serene and clear. 



Or turn we to the green hill's side ; 

There, with the spring-time showers, 
The white-thorn o'er a nameless grave. 

Rains its pale, silver flowers. 



Yet memory lingers with the past, 

Nor vainly seeks to trace 
His foot-prints on a rock, whence time 

Nor tempests can efface ; 



Whereon he planted, fast and deep, 

The roof-tree of a home 
Wide as the wings of Love may sweep, 

Free as her thoughts may roam j 



ROGER WILLIAMS. 179 

Where, through all time, the saints may dwell, 

And from pure fountains draw 
That peace which passeth human thought, 

In Liberty and Law. 



When heavenward, up the silver stair 
Of silence drawn, we tread 

The visioned mount that looks beyond 
The Valley of the Dead,— 



Oh, may we gather to our hearts 
The deeds our fathers wrought, 

And feed the perfumed lamp of love 
In the cool air of thought : 



While Hope shall on her Anchor lean, 

May Memory fondly turn 
To wreath the amaranth and the palm 

Around their funeral urn. 



180 



THE CROSS. 



" We cannot see earth's cruel eyes 
When ours are lifted to the skies." 
Elizabeth Barrett. 



Sad memento of a story 

Sorrowful as death and love — 
Mystic symbol of a glory 

Brightening all the worlds above ! 



From the holy ensign borrow, 
When thy soul is sad and lorn, 

Solace in that mortal sorrow 
^y the immortal spirit borne ; 



THE CROSS. 181 

Fairer through life's cross and passion 

Shall its aureola burn — 
To a loftier resurrection 

From its lingering sorrow turn. 



Bind the symbol on thy bosom ; 

From the sharp and cruel thorn, 
Rays of mystic glory blossom, 

Of that lingering sorrow borne. 



When thy lonely heart is dreaming 
Of a love on earth unfound, 

Think upon the love redeeming — 
On the soul with sorrow crowned. 



In lone Gethsemanes kneeling — 
By the loved of earth betrayed — 

Drink the bitter cup of healing, 
Wait the morning undismayed. 



182 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Bear, in holy resignation, 

On thy heart the mystic rood — 

Fill with heavenly contemplation 
Earth's dim garden-solitude. 



Thus the solemn calm, enzoning 
Life's wild tumult, shall be thine 

And thy trust in love atoning 
Lift thee to the life divine. 



SONNETS. 



SONNETS. 185 



TO ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 



* perpetui fiori 
Dell 'eterna letizia ! ' 

II Paradiso. 

Fair Sybil, sitting in thy * House of Clouds,' 

Shrined, like some solitary star, above 
The dull, cold shadow that our earth enshrouds, 

How oft my spirit looks to thee in love ! 
To thy ' Lost Bower ' how oft in dreams returning, 

I see thee standing in the sylvan room — 
See the red sun-light in the rose-cups burning, 

And the sweet blue-bells nodding through the gloom ; 
Again I hear thy grand and solemn dirges 

To the dim ' Gods of Hellas,' like the breeze 
O'er lone savannas sighing, or the surges 

That wash the sands of solitary seas; 
Then, in calm waves of glory, swells the strain, 

* Christ from the dead hath risen and shall reign I ' 



186 SONNETS. 



II 



"Ad una vista 
D'un gran palazzo Michol ammirava 
Si come donna dispettosa e trista." 

Il Pdkgatorio. 



Sometimes I see thee, pale with scorn and sorrow, 

At a great palace window, looking forth, 
To-day on plumed Florentines — to-morrow 

Upon the stern battalions of the North : 
Sometimes o'er little children bending lowly, 

To hear their cry, in the dark factories drowned ; 
Ah, then, thy pitying brow grows sweet and holy, 

With a saint's aureole of sorrow crowned ! 
But most I love thee when that mystic glory — 

Kindling at horrors that abhor the day — 
Sheds a wild, stormy splendor o'er the story 

Of the dark fugitive, who turned away 
To death's cold threshold, calm in death's disdain, 
From the 'White Pilgrim's Rock,' beside the western 
main. 



SONNETS. 187 



III. 



" Or discendiamo omai a maggior pieta." 

L'Inferno. 



Ay, most I love thee when thy starry song 

Stoops to the plague-spot that we dare not name, 
And bears with burning breath the envenomed wrong — 

Our country's dark inheritance of shame. 
When our blaspheming synods look thereon, 

(Stifling God's law and Nature's noble ires 
With the cold ashes of dead council-fires,) 

That Gorgon Terror chills them into stone. 
Yet, while they dream, another noble heart, 

Serene in love's great light and woman's ruth — 
A woman, loyal to God's living truth — 

Hath uttered calm, clear words whose rays shall dart 
Like sunbeams through our realm's tartar ean gloom. 
Till love's own holy light its stygian depths illume. 



188 SONNETS. 



THE GARDEN MINSTER 



FROM THE FEENCH OP VICTOR HUGO. 



How seems this garden, with its depths of shade 

And verdurous, vaulted aisles, for worship made ; 

Where every blossom bows its head in prayer 

Or swings it censer on the silent air ; 

Where the the slow footsteps of the Summer Hours 

From dawn till dusk descend on opening flowers, 

And, as they pass, with light and shade by turns, 

Fill the cool hollows of the marble urns. 

A holy rapture thrills me while I gaze 

Up the blue heavens through the o'ershadowing maze ; 

Or sit long hours in sweet monastic dreams, 

Where o'er its rocky bed the river streams, 

In the lone grotto, dusky, cool and dim. 

Where ivies cluster round the fountain's brim. 



SONNETS. 189 



TO E. O. S. 



" Eos, fair Goddess of the Morn ! whose eyes 
Drive back night's wandering ghosts." 

Hokne's Orion. 

When issuing from the realms of ' Shadow Land' 

I see thee mid the orient's kindling bloom, 

With mystic lilies gleaming in thy hand, 

Gathered by dream-light in the dusky gloom 

Of bowers enchanted — I behold again 

The fabled Goddess of the Morning, veiled 

In fleecy clouds. Thy cheek, so softly paled 

With memories of the Night's mysterious reign, 

And something of the star-light, burning still 

In thy deep, dreamy eyes, do but fulfil 

The vision more divinely to my thought : 

While all the cheerful hopes enkindling round thee — 

Warm hopes, wherewith thy prescient soul hath crowned 

thee — 
Are with the breath of morning fragrance fraught. 



190 SONNETS. 



A NOVEMBER LANDSCAPE, 



How like a rich and gorgeous picture hung 

In memory's storied hall, seems that fair scene 

O'er which long years their mellowing tints have flung. 

The way-side flowers had faded one by one, 

Hoar were the hills, the meadows drear and dun — 

When homeward, wending, 'neath the dusky screen 

Of the Autumnal woods at close of day, 

As o'er a pine-clad height my path way lay, 

Lo! at a sudden turn, the vale below 

Lay far outspread, all flushed with purple light; 

Grey rocks and umbered woods gave back the glow 

Of the last day-beams, fading into nightj 

While down the glen where Mr Moshaussuck flows 

With all its kindling lamps the distant city rose. 



SONNETS. 191 



WITHERED FLOWERS. 



Remembrancers of happiness ! to me 

Ye bring sweet thoughts of the year's purple prime, 

Wild, mingling melodies of bird and bee, 

That pour on summer winds their silvery chime — 

Of balmy incense, burdening all the air. 

From flowers that by the sunny garden wall 

Bloomed at your side, — nursed into beauty there 

By dews and silent showers : but these to all 

Ye bring. Oh ! sweeter far than these the spell 

Shrined in those fairy urns for me alone ; 

For me a charm sleeps in each honied cell, 

Whose power can call back hours of rapture flown, 

To the sad heart sweet memories restore. 

Tones, looks and words of love that may return no more. 



192 



SONNETS. 



REMEMBERED MUSIC 



Oh, lonely heart ! why do thy pulses beat 

To the hushed music of a voice so dear, 

That all sweet, mournful cadences repeat 

Its low, bewildering accents to thine ear. 

Why dost thou question the pale stars to know 

If that rich music floats upon the air. 

In those far realms where, else, their fires would glow 

Forever beautiful to thy despair ? — 

Trust thou in God ; for, far within the veil. 

Where glad hosannas through the empyrean roll, 

And choral anthems of the angel's hail 

With hallelujah's sweet the enfranchised soul, — 

The voice that sang earth's sorrow through earth's 

night. 
Shall with glad seraphs sing, in God's great light. 



I. 



TO 



Vainly my heart had with thy sorceries striven : 
It had no refuge from thy love — no Heaven 
But in thy fatal presence ; — from afar 
It owned thy power and trembled like a star 
O'erfraught with light and splendor. Could I deem 
How dark a shadow should obscure its beam ? — 
Could I believe that pain could ever dwell 
Where thy bright presence cast its blissful spell ? 
Thou wert my proud palladium ; — could I fear 
The avenging Destinies when thou wert near ? — 
Thou wert my Destiny — thy song, thy fame, 
The wild enchantments clustering round thy name, 
Were my soul's heritage — its royal dower : — 
Its glory and its kingdom and its power ! 
u 



194 SONNETS. 



11. 



When first I looked into thy glorious eyes, 
And saw — with their unearthly beauty pained — 
Heaven deepening within heaven, like the skies 
Of autumn nights without a shadow stained ; — 
I stood as one whom some strange dream enthralls ; 
For, far away, in some lost life divine — 
Some land which every glorious dream recalls, 
A spirit looked on me with eyes like thine. 
E'en now, though death has veiled their starry light 
And closed their lids in his relentless night — 
As some strange dream, remembered in a dream, 
Again I see, in sleep, their tender beam ; — 
Unfading hopes their cloudless azure fill, 
Heaven deepening within heaven, serene and still. 



SONNETS. 195. 



in. 



Oft since thine earthly eyes have closed on mine^. 
Our souls, dim-wandering in the hall of dreams, 
Hold mystic converse on the life divine, 
By the still music of immortal streams; 
And oft thy spirit tells how souls, affied 
By sovran destinies, no more can part — 
How death and hell are powerless to divide 
Souls whose deep lives lie folded heart in hearts. 
And if, at times, some lingering shadow lies- 
Heavy upon thy path — some haunting dread^ — 
Then do I point thee to the sacrifice 
Of Him who did his holy life-blood shed 
For thy soul's weal — the faith that doth approve 
In death, the deathless power and divine life of Love. 



196 SONNETS. 



IV. 



We met beneath September's gorgeous beams : 
Long in my ' house of life' thy star had reigned ; — 
Its mournful splendor trembled through my dreams, 
Nor with the night's phantasmal glories waned. 
We wandered thoughtfully o'er golden meads 
To a lone woodland, lit by starry flowers, 
Where a wild, solitary pathway leads 
Through mouldering sepulchres and cypress bowers. 
A dreamy sadness filled the autumnal air ; — 
By a low, nameless grave I stood beside thee, 
My heart according io thy murmured prayer 
The full, sweet answers that my lips denied thee. 
O mournful faith, on that dread altar sealed — 
Sad dawn of love in realms of death revealedi 



SONNETS. 197 



V. 



On our lone pathway bloomed no earthly hopes : — 
Sorrow and death were near us, as we stood 
Where the dim forest, from the upland slopes. 
Swept darkly to the sea. The enchanted wood 
Thrilled, as by some foreboding terror stirred ; 
And as the waves broke on the lonely shore, 
In their low monotone, methought I heard 
A solemn voice that sighed 'Ye meet no more.' 
There, while the level sunbeams seemed to burn 
Through the long aisles of red, autumnal gloom — 
Where stately, storied cenotaphs inurn 
Sweet human hopes, too fair on Earth to bloom — 
Was the bud reaped, whose petals, pure and cold, 
Sleep on my heart till Heaven the flower unfold. 



198 SONNETS. 



VI. 



If thy sad heart, pining for human love, 
In its earth solitude grew dark with fear, 
Lest the high Sun of Heaven itself should prove 
Powerless to save from that phantasmal sphere 
Wherein thy spirit wandered — if the flowers 
That pressed around thy feet, seemed but to bloom 
In lone Gethsemanes, through starless hours, 
When all, who loved, had left thee to thy doom : — 
Oh, yet believe, that, in that ' hollow vale,' 
Where thy soul lingers, waiting to attain 
So much of Heaven's sweet grace as shall avail 
To lift its burden of remorseful pain — 
My soul shall meet thee and its Heaven forego 
Till God's great love, on both, one hope, one Heaven 
bestow. 



TRANSLATIONS 



THE LOST CHURCH 



FROM THE GERMAN OF UHLANI>. 



In yonder dim and pathless wood 

Strange sounds are heard at twilight hour. 
And peals of solemn music swell, 

As from some minster's lofty tower. 
From age to age those sounds are heard. 

Borne on the breeze at twilight hour ; 
From age to age, no foot hath found 

A pathway to the minster's tower. 



Late, wandering in that ancient wood, 
As onward through the gloom I trod. 

From all the woes and wrongs of earth 
My soul ascended to its God» 



202 TRANSLATIONS. 

When lo, in the hushed wilderness 
I heard, far off, that solemn bell : 

Still heavenward as my spirit soared, 
Wilder and sweeter rang the knell. 



While thus in holy musings rapt, 

My mind from outward sense withdrawn, 
Some power had caught me from the earth, 

And far into the heavens upborne — 
Methought a hundred years had passed, 

In mystic visions as I lay, 
When suddenly the parting clouds 

Seemed opening wide and far away. 



No midday sun its glory shed, — 

The stars were shrouded from my sight, — 
And lo ! majestic o'er my head, 

A minster shone in solemn light. 
High through the lurid heavens it seemed 

Aloft, on cloudy wings, to rise, 
Till all its pointed turrets gleamed. 

Far flaming, through the vaulted skies ; 



THE LOST CHURCH. 203 

The bell, with full, resounding peal. 

Rang booming through the rocking tower : 
No hand had stirred its iron tongue, 

Slow swaying to the storm-wind's power. 
My bosom, beating like a bark 

Dashed by the surging ocean's foam, 
I trod, with faltering, fearful joy, 

The mazes of the mighty dome. 



A soft light through the oriel streamed, 

Like summer moonlight's golden gloom ; 
Far through the dusky arches gleamed, 

And filled with glory all the room. 
Pale sculptures of the sainted dead 

Seemed waking from their icy thrall, 
And many a glory-circled head 

Smiled sadly from the storied wall. 



Low at the altar's foot I knelt. 

Transfixed with awe, and dumb with dread, 
For blazoned on the vaulted roof 

Were heaven's fiercest glories spread. 



204 TRANSLATIONS. 

Yet when I raised my eyes on«e more, 
The vaulted roof itself was gone; 

Wide open was heaven's lofty door, 
And every cloudy veil withdrawn ! 



What visions burst upon my soul — 

What joys, unutterable, there, 
In waves on waves, forever roll 

Like music through the pulseless air — 
These never mortal tongue may tell : 

Let him who fain would prove their power, 
Pause when he hears that solemn knell 

Float on the breeze at twilight hour. 



205 



LEONORA 



FKOil THE GERMAN OF BURGER. 



From heavy dreams, sad Leonore 

Rose with the dawning day ; 
Her heart oppressed by boding fears 

At Wilhelm's long delay. 
With Frederic's force her soldier went 

To meet his country's foe ; 
And since, no tidings had he sent, 

To tell of weal or woe. 



206 TRANSLATIONS. 

The king and the proud empress-queen, 

Weary of endless war, 
At length renounce their fruitless strife 

And welcome peace once more. 
The weary, toil-worn warriors come, 

Rejoicing on their way ; 
With blare of trump and beat of drum. 

In oaken garlands gay. 



And every way-side, every path, 

Is thronged with eager feet. 
Of friends and kindred, hurrying forth 

The coming host to meet. 
The lover greets his plighted bride ; 

But ah ! for poor Lenore, — 
No greeting to her pallid lips 

Shall bring the roses more. 



She wandered up and down the road, 

To frantic fears a prey, 
And vainly questioned all that came, 

Throughout that weary day j 



LEONORA. 207 



The army now had all passed by ! 

She tore her raven hair, 
She threw herself upon the earth, 

In desolate despair. 



The mother folds her to her heart 
And seeks with counsels vain 

Some word of comfort to impart 
To soothe her darling's pain. 

"Oh mother ! what is lost is lost ! 
Now Earth and Heaven may go. 

There is no pitying God in Heaven- 
No love for aught below." 



*' Peace, peace ! who knows the Father's love, 

Knows he can aid impart ; — 
The blessed sacrament shall soothe 

Thy pierced and bleeding heart." 
" No balm upon this burning heart 

The sacrament can pour ! — 
No sacrament, to love and life, 

The cold, cold dead restore." 



208 TRANSLATIONS. 

"Oh mother, would my lamp of life 

Would sink in endless night I 
How shall I loathe the midnight gloom 

And loathe the morning light ! 
And what, to me, is Heaven's bliss, 

And what, to me, is Hell ; 
With him, with him is happiness, 

And oh ! without him, Hell ! 



" Perchance dear child, he loves no more, 

And wandering far and wide. 
Hath sought, upon a foreign shore, 

To wed a foreign bride." . 
*'0 mother ! what is lost is lost ! 

There is no pitying love — 
No joy in life, no balm in death — 

No hope in Heaven above. 



Go out, life's light — forever out ; 

Die, die, in night and dread ! 
There is no pitying God in Heaven ; 

Would, would that I were dead !" 



LEONORA. 209 



Thus raged the frenzy of despair 
Within her burning brain — 

Thus with God's righteous providence- 
She strove in anguish vain. 



She beat her breast and tore her hair 

Till the long day was done — 
Till in the west the silent stars 

Came twinkling one by one. 
She sat within her lonely room 

Nor marked the dying day, 
Till the moon's light, o'er tower and height, 

In silver glory lay. 



When lo ! she hears a courser's hoofs 

Ring on the frozen ground : 
A knight alights before the gate — 

His clanging arms resound. 
And hark ! a low and soft ' kling ling' 

Sounds through the silent room ! 
And hark ! a well-known voice she hears 

Beside her in the gloom ! 
15 



*nO TRANSLATIONS. 

** What ho ! Lenore ; unbar the door ; — 

Art watching or asleep ? — 
Doth my fair bride forget her vows, 

Or fear her vows to keep ? " 
»• Ah Wilhelm, thou ! so late at night? 

Oh, I have watched and wept ; 
What from thy Leonora's side. 

So long her love hath kept !" 



*' From far Hungarian fields I come 

On my lone midnight ride, 
To bear thee to thy distant home; 

Away, away my bride ! '' 
** The wind blows thro' the hawthorn bush j 

It whistles loud and shrill ; 
Come in, and warm thee in my arms ; 

Ah ! why so cold and still ?" 



" Let the wind through the hawthorn blow. 

Or howl across the mere ; 
The black horse paws, and clank the spurs, 

I dare not linger here. 



Come, don thy snow-white robes with speed, 

And swiftly mount behind ; 
We ride a hundred leagues ere day, 

Our bridal bed to find ! " 



**And must we ride a hundred leagues 

To reach our bridal bower ? 
Hark ! even now, the booming bell, 

Tolls out the midnight hour." 
*'Ha! dost thou fear? — the moon shines clear 

Soon will our course be sped ! 
I bear thee to our bridal home 

And to our bridal bed." 



" Ah ! tell me where the bridal hall, 

And where the couch is spread ? " 
** Far, far from here; cold, narrow, drear, 

Lies our low marriage bed ! ** 
«* Hast room for me ? " *' For thee and me.^ 

Come, busk thee, darling bride ; 
The wedding guests are waiting, 

The door stands open wide." 



212 TRANSLATIONS. 

The maiden donned her bridal robes ; 

On the black steed she sprung, 
And round the knight her snowy arms 

In trembling silence flung. 
And on they gallop, f;ist and far, 

Nor mount nor stream their course can bar 
While horse and rider p mt and blow ; 

The fire-sparks fl ishing as they go. 



The crags shoot by — the castles fly — 

The rattling hoofs resound ; 
The bridges thunder 'neath their tread, 

And rings the hollow ground. 
" Ha! doth my Leonora fear 

With her true love to ride ? 
The midnight moon shines cold and clear — 

The dead ride swift, mv bride!" 



Hark ! wailings float upon the air, 

And hollow dirges ring ! 
Why tolls the bell that solemn knell, 

Why flaps the raven's wing? 



LEONORA. 213 

Lo, sweeping o'er the lonely moor, 

A dark funereal train ! 
They chaunt a requiem o'er the bier — 

A hoarse, sepulchral strain. 



** Bury your dead when midnight's past, 

With wild lament and prayer ; 
To-night I wed a fearless bride, 

Our banquet ye shall share. 
Come priest and choir, and mourners, all, 

Come crone the marriage song ; 
Come priest, and bless the bridal bed, 

And join the merry throng.'^ 



Now fades into the dusky air 

The coffin and the pall ; 
They sweep along, a ghostly throng. 

The mourners, priest and all ; 
And faster, faster, still they speed, 

O'er wild morass and moonlight mead, 
While horse and rider pant and blow. 

The fire sparks flashing as they go! 



#14 THANSLATIONS. 

How swiftly, on the right and left. 

The mountains hurry by ; 
How swiftly, on the right and left, 

Town, tower, and forest fly ! 
** Doth my love fear ? the moon shines clear ;. 

Ah ha ! dost fear the dead 1 
The dead ride swift — hurrah ! hurrah ! " 

"Ah, speak not of the dead I" 



Now, where the moonbeams faintly fall. 

Yon frantic rabble see ; 
How fearfully they wheel and spin, 

Beneath the gallows-tree ! 
*' Halloo ! halloo ! ye grisly crew. 

Come here, and follow me ; 
Around us prance a fetter-dance, 

And quit the gallows-tree." 



And now, across the moonlit waste, 

They hurry on behind ; 
A sound like dry and withered leaves. 

Low rustling in the wind. 



LEONORA. 215 

And onward, onward still they speed, 
Nor rock nor stock their course impede ; 

While horse and rider pant and blow, 
The fire-sparks flashing as they go ! 



Fast flies the quiet moon-light scene, 

Fast, fast and far, it flies ; 
Fast fly the fleecy clouds above, 

And fast the starry skies. 
" Ha ! dost thou fear? — the moon shines clear ; 

And fast the dead can ride." 
" Oh, name the dead no more ! " '* Ah, ha ! 

Dost fear the dead, my bride ? 



Methinks I smell the morning air, 

And hark ! the cock doth crow ! 
Then onward speed, my trusty steed ! 

Haste ! haste ! our sands run low. 
Our race is run, our course is done. 

And we are at the goal ; 
Swift ride the dead — hurrah ! hurrah ! 

Come priest, bind soul to soul ! " 



216 TRANSLATIONS. 

Up to a gloomy portal now, 

With slackened rein they ride ; 
When lo ! the massive bar and bolt 

Back from their staples glide. 
And as the dark and sounding door 

Upon its hinges turns, 
She sees, in the moon's glimmering light, 

Grey tombs and mouldering urns. 



Suddenly, from the rider's form, 

By some unearthly spell. 
The welded armor, piece by piece 

In shivered fragments fell. 
She sees a hideous skeleton, 

A ghastly Horror, stand 
Before her glazing eyes revealed — 

An hour-orlass in his hand. 



High reared the fiery, frantic steed, 
And trembled with affright; 

Then sank into the yawning earth, 
And vanished from her siofht !• 



• LEONORA. 217 

Wild bowlings echoed through the air, 

And from the graves beneath ; 
While Leonora's throbbing heart 

Trembled 'twixt life and death. 



Now round her, in the pallid light, 

The wheeling spectres fly, 
And, as they vanish from her sight. 

In hollow murmurs cry : 
"Repent ; nor doubt the Father's love ; 

Submit to Heaven's control : 
We yield thy body to the earth ; 

May God receive thy soul." 



318 



FROM GOETHE'S FAUST 



PART SECOND. 



SCENE AT THE COURT OF THE E3IPER0R, 



MEPHISTOPHELES. 

It seems that every where on this dull earth 
Something is lacking ; — here of gold is dearth. 
'Tis true we cannot sweep it from the floor, 
But wisdom can unfathomed depths explore. 
In mountain clefts and dungeons manifold, 
Are piles of minted and unminted gold, 
And I by spiritual force and trust 
In mighty nature, can obtain the dust. 



FR(M« GOETHE^^S FAUST. 219 



CHANCELLOR. 

Nature and spirit ! — never christian spake 
Such words as these. — We burn men at the stake 
For such profanities. Foul words and evil ! 
Nature means sin, and spirit means the Devil ; 
And, between both, is nursed the abortive brood 
Whose monster heresies mankind delude. 



MEPHISTOPHELES. 

By this I see what wise-acres ye are; 
What ye can handle not seems miles afar ; 
What ye can grasp not is an empty shade ; 
What ye divine not must all search evade ; 
That which ye have not poised in weight is stinted 
And no coin current save what ye have minted. 



220 



TO THE CLOUDS 



FROM THE GERMAN. 



Clouds that sweep the midnight heaven, 
On your wild wings let me rove ; — 

Leave me not with anguish riven, 
None who love me — none to love. 



Oft, my nightly vigils keeping, 
I have watched ye till the dawn ; 

Through the far blue heavens sweeping. 
On your snowy pinions borne. 



TO THE CLOUDS. 221 

Away — away, forever speeding, 

Careless wanderers of the air — 
Human joy or woe unheeding — 

Ah, ye pause not at my prayer : 



Leave, oh, leave me not in sadness — 
Heavenly longings in my breast — 

Bear me, on your wings of gladness, 
To the far home of my rest. 



On the lonely hills of morning 
Breaks a red and lurid ray — 

Hide me, hide me from the dawning- 
Fold me from the dreary day ! 



222 



THE DYING HEROES. 



FROM THE GERMAN OF UHLAND. 



The valiant Danes drive back the Sweedish host 
In wild confusion to the northern coast ; 
The sounding chariots clash — the bright swords gleam, 
The broad, round shields flash back the moon's cold 

beam; 
On the red corse-field, mid the the fierce affray, 
Lies the young Sven and Ulf the warrior grey. 

SVEN. 

Alas ! my father, in the power and bloom 
Of life, grim Noma calls me to the tomb : 
In vain my mother, from the oaken bough. 
Weaves a bright garland for her warrior's brow ;— 
From her high tower my Edith looks in vain 
To see my chariot in the victor's train. 



THE DYING HEROES. 223 



ULF 

In the grey night for thee her tears shall fall, 
Till visioned sleep thine image shall recall ; 
Yet mourn not thus : the path which thou hast led, 
Though dark the way, she will not fear to tread ; 
Soon shall she, smiling through her golden hair, 
For thee at Odin's feast the bowl prepare. 

SVEN. 

No more the solemn chaunt my voice shall raise 
Amid our warrior youth on festal days ; 
The deeds of kings and heroes sing no more ; 
Their conquering arms, their fates in love and war 
Through my neglected harp the wind shall sigh 
And wake low dirges as it wanders by. 

ULF. 

High towers above us, like an eagle's nest, 
The bright Valhallah of our fathers' rest ; 
The stars roll under it, and, far below, 
Red meteors gleam and fiery comets glow — 
There, at the solemn feast, we meet again . 
Lift up thy song to a triumphal strain ! 



224 TRANSLATIONS. 



SVEN. 

Ah heavy doom ! thus from the bright world torn — 
From life and love in youth's unhonored morn ; 
While yet, no proud deed of the battle field — 
No trophied arms, are sculptured on my shield : 
Twelve fearful judges sit enthroned on high ; 
How shall I shrink before each awful eye ! 

ULF. 

One lofty deed their favor shall secure — 

One deed whose rays no shadow can obscure ; 

Pours not thy young heart, on this barren strand, 

Its life-blood freely for our fatherland ? 

And see ! our foeman yield : — the clouds are riven ! 

There lies our pathway to the halls of Heaven ! 



225 



THE COTTAGE. 



TROM THE GERMAN OF GLEI3I, 



I have a cottage by the hill ; 

It stands upon a meadow green ; 
Behind it flows a murmuring rill, 

Cool-rooted moss and flowers between. 



Beside the cottage stands a tree, 

That flings its shadow o'er the eaves ; 

And scarce the sunshine visits me, 
Save when a light wind rifts the leaves. 
16 



22G 



TRANSLATIONS. 



A red-bird sings upon a spray, 

Through the sweet summer-time, night-long, 
And evening travelers on their way, 

Linger to hear her plaintive song. 



Tliou, maiden, with the yellow hair — 
The winds of life are sharp and chill — 

Wilt thou not seek a shelter there, 
In yon lone cottage by the hill 1 



227 



MY FLOWERS. 



Sweet buds and berries gathered, far and wide, 

In haunted glens or wild sequestered ways ; 
By sun or starlight — in the purple pride 

Of Summer, or in Autumn's golden haze; — 
Long have I held ye, clasped within my hands, 

Wooing your mystic odors to restore 
The sweet aroma of those flowery lands ; — 

The perfume of the days that are no more : 
Farewell ! kind hands are weaving for my brow 

The cold and slumbrous garlands of the tomb : 
Farewell ! I fling ye on the way-side nov*-, 

Where heedless feet may trample on your bloom ; 
For, through the silence and the o'ershadowing calm. 

Floats the far perfume of the Eden palm. 



THE END. 



7 1 b . t:<m 

'1 a ^ '*"■! 




>y-^ 



'% 



■%4 .^, 












.#' 'V 








.0 -<* '''' 



^^-^'^■^ >:^ ' 



^^ 






&M: .j^' 






#.v»\ 



-^o. 



,0* 



'■i^ 



cP' 



^ ^CT-^-'V.^ 



oo' 






% 



.0- 



^^s^^ 



o>" 



C^, /' 



^. 






k V tP^ 






V- ^ " " / 

„.^^. "V. 






\>^ 






V 1 8 ^ -i^. 



<> ,k 



OQ^ 



.O 



^ ^^ 



rO- 



V o ^ ' « 



.•-^ 



■^ V^ - ^1!/::^. 






-^ 



':%■ 



'^^'?' 
4^'% 



<^ ''^'7.\^"^ 



, ^' 









-0- 



,0o 



'k^'^ ^'T^'^'s 






o 0^ 






.^^% 



- '^- 



^,. ..^^ 






,•0' 



.-^^^ 



-0^ 



.Oo. 






' " ' * o*^ ■ s ' <^ / ^-^ '^ y N 






.-S^<^. 



